SANTA ANA - The Dons opened Orange Empire Conference competition today with a come-from-behind 7-3 victory over Riverside City College. The win improves the Dons to 10-4 overall and 1-0 in the OEC while Riverside drops to 6-8 and 0-1.
Both offenses struggled early as the game started out as a pitcher's duel between SAC's Evanne Wilkes and Riverside's Bryan Conant. Each pitcher gave up just one run as Wilkes pitched six innings and Conant 5.2.
It was the Dons who scored first when Frankie Nogales led off the second inning with a single before scoring from first on a two-out double by Logan Roberts to centerfield. The Tigers first run came in the third inning when Nick King doubled in Michael Deceglie who walked earlier in the inning.
From there, both offenses failed to put any more runs on the board until they got to the bullpen. Riverside broke the 1-1 tie in the top of the seventh inning with two runs coming in on an error and a RBI-single.
The Dons bounced back with two runs of their own in the bottom half of the seventh with Ryan Aguilar singling in Joshua Vargas before Troy Baird plated Philip Anderson with a sacrifice fly to tie the game at 3-3.
Then in the eighth inning, the Dons put together the best offensive inning of the game with four runs on just one hit. The Dons also drew four walks while taking advantage of a Riverside error. The go-ahead run came in when Garret Brown singled through the middle to score Cameron Baranek who came in to pinch run for Roberts.
Brown came around to score later in the inning on a wild pitch before Baird reached on an error, allowing Vargas and Anderson to score the game's final two runs.
A.J. Franks (2-0) picked up the win for the Dons as he held Riverside scoreless over 2.1 innings while allowing just one hit. Thomas Petersen (0-1) took the loss as he allowed three runs on three hits in 1.2 innings.
Wilkes didn't factor into the decision but finished with a line of one run on six hits over six innings with one strikeout. His counterpart, Conant, allowed one run on seven hits with four strikeouts in 5.2 innings.
