On March 12, the Mustangs faced off against the Sacramento City Panthers during a home game at Nick Cecchetti Field and won 4-2 in the second game of a three-game series.
Both teams started the game scoreless until the sixth inning, when Delta was down 2-1 with little to no energy left. But in the eighth inning, they scored three runs to rally and beat the Panthers.
No. 44, Freshman player Alex Escalante, explained how the team addressed their struggles and overcame that hurdle.
“Right now, I mean, Sac City is obviously one of the better teams in our conference,” said Escalante. “Today, a big thing is we’re able to back each other up no matter what position we are on the field. We could be down by 5 in the ninth inning and we’re still going to give it all we have … Our coaches, you know, they give us confidence, courage on what we need to do and they put trust in us.”
The game could have ended early, but the amazing defense by Delta made this game a bit closer at the end to capture the victory over Sacramento.
With the 3-0 run from the Mustangs, the pitching, both No. 10 Pitcher Justin Jones and No. 19 Jace Johnson, delivered solid performances that helped spark the run.
The whole pitching staff combined for 12 strikeouts and allowed only two runs.
The main MVP of the game was Jones, who pitched six innings while allowing two earned runs on five hits.
On March 10, Delta lost to Sac State 8-1, meaning that this game was huge to be able to regain that momentum back from the Panthers.
“I think it’s a good bounce back for us,” said Associate Head Coach Anthony D’albora. “We obviously lost for the first game of the series, and we haven’t done that yet. We haven’t had to deal with that yet so it was good for us to be able to bounce back and do enough to win today but also still a good reminder that there’s still a lot that we can execute to be better.”
