Citrus Hill baseball team tops Tahquitz with wedding day at the plate

HEMET - - For the Citrus Hill baseball group, Friday supplied a lesson in perseverance.

For Tahquitz, it was a tip that Mountain Pass League teams in its rear-view mirror are not far behind.

After taking a couple of knockdown punches in their first two meetings against Tahquitz, Citrus Hill owned Round 3 in their league battles, pounding out a 10-6 success.

The outcome postponed the Titans being able to celebrate winning another MPL title, and cut their lead in the league standings to 1 1/2 games.

" Every time we play Tahquitz, we know we're going to have to battle," Citrus Hill coach Steven McLeod stated. The very first 2 times, they kind of got to us.

Tahquitz (14-7, 10-2 in league) won the very first 2 meetings 6-0 and 11-1. On Friday, however, the Hawks (13-4, 8-3) did a lot of things to make a coach smile.

They pounded out 15 hits, with every spot in the lineup producing a minimum of one and a minimum of one run or RBI. They opted for pitches to produce key opposite-field hits. They were aggressive on the bases and taken advantage of the opportunities that developed.

Given the lopsided lead to the first 2 conferences, Citrus Hill needed to reveal strength when Tahquitz scored two runs in the very first.

The Hawks pulled even and after that took command of the game with a five-run fifth inning to make it 8-3.

No. 9 player Riley Corlew triggered the attack with a leadoff triple. Dominic Torrez had a run-scoring hit in the rally and Eljay Arevalo delivered a dagger with a three-run double.

It was a big day for Torrez, a senior on a young team. He had a couple of hits, made 2 magnificent plays at shortstop and worked a scoreless seventh on the mound.

" Dominic Torrez is a great gamer," McLeod said. "He's a leader on this group. He's a captain. And that shows you why. He's one of the only gamers I've coached in the last 10 years who will run every groundball out. He'll run walks out.".

For Torrez, the takeaway was what the video game might suggest for the remainder of the season.

" I think it's truly good for our morale," he said. "It truly shows us that we can take on these teams.".

Citrus Hill had 11 hits, consisting of a couple of run-scoring knocks from Ramon Valenzuela. The Hawks, nevertheless, encountered a number of outs in key situations.

" The truth is, you lose to a great team and you can't pity yourself," Tahquitz coach Mike Solar said. "We ran the table (in league) last year, however that wasn't going to occur again. We'll regroup.".