EL CENTRO – The Grossmont College Griffins swept a doubleheader that took more than seven hours to complete under very windy conditions at Imperial Valley on Thursday.
Grossmont (11-10, 4-5 PCAC) and Imperial Valley (4-19, 1-9 PCAC) dealt with 20-25 mph sustained winds the entire day at Imperial Valley's baseball field, that has no wind break as it is on the far West side of the campus in the Sonoran Desert. Next to the campus is a large plot of farming land and has nothing to break or block the wind.
Brodie Romero went 4-for-8 with a double and a home run along with seven runs batted in on the day. Ethan Caschetta went 8-for-12 with a double and three runs batted in.
In game one of the doubleheader, the Griffins scored four runs in both the fourth and the eighth innings while tacking on one more run in the seventh.
With one out, Luke Mansy was hit by a pitch and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Luke Denos followed with a walk. Brady Romero reached on a fielding error by Imperial Valley to load the bases. Skyler Agnew tripled to eight center field which brought home everyone. Justin Cervantes singled to left to bring in Agnew. The Griffins loaded the bases again, but could not get anything else across the plate. Making the score 4-2 after four innings.
Imperial Valley scratched across a run in the sixth to bring the score to 4-3.
Nevan Noonan tripled to right center to leadoff the top of the seventh. Mansy followed it up with a single to bring in Noonan and extend the Griffins lead to 5-3.
An inning later, Caschetta walked to open the top of the eighth, Zavien Watson singled moving Caschetta to second. After a poor bunt led to an out without moving the runners, Noonan lined out to third on what could go down as the hardest hit of the entire season. Mansy drove in Cashcetta with a single that allowed Watson to go to third. Watson scored and Mansy moved to second on a wild pitch. That wild pitch eventually led to Denos walking to make it first and second and two down. IVC brought in a relief pitcher to face Romero. Romero doubled in Denos and Mansy to close out the Griffins scoring.
Game two saw the Griffins come out bats a blazing! The Griffins would put seven runs up in the first inning and would never look back. All nine batters would reach base safely consecutively in the first inning. The second would see the Green and Gold put another four runs on the board to lead 11-0 midway through the second inning. After taking a break in the third inning, the offense decided to tack three more runs on in the fourth to make it 14-1.
In the fourth (three runs each) and fifth innings (one run each) saw the team match run for run. In the sixth inning, Grossmont scored one run on a RBI single by Juan Nunez to make it 16-5 Grossmont. Imperial Valley scored a pair of runs in the sixth to make it 16-7. Which meant the Griffins just needed to keep IVC scoreless in the seventh and score one run to activate the run rule. Well, the Griffins scored one in the top of the seventh to make it 17-7. Sadly, the Griffins allowed a run to score in the bottom of the seventh to keep the game going.
Both squads went scoreless in the eighth inning. In the ninth, Grossmont would tack on three runs to give them 20 for the game (the second time this conference season they have scored that many). In the bottom of the ninth, Imperial Valley forced two runs across to make the final 20-10.
With the sweep, the Griffins gain a full game in the standings and are now just a half-game behind San Diego Mesa and San Diego City for third place. Grossmont will take on Mesa in a three-game set this coming week.