Community College Baseball : Cypress’ Bennet Keeps Fullerton Off Pace, 11-1

There are two types of pitchers, those who try to overpower hitters and those who try to fool them.

Jim Bennet of Cypress College is one of the latter. His fastball isn’t about to make anybody forget Dwight Gooden or Nolan Ryan, so instead, he throws what is known in baseball parlance as junk--changeups, slow curves and even slower sinkers.

And Saturday, on a hot, smoggy afternoon, Bennet was on his game. His tantalizing assortment of off-speed pitches limited Fullerton to only four hits and no earned runs as Cypress embarrassed the Hornets, 11-1, in South Coast Conference action at Cypress.

“Fullerton has a lot of free swingers, and they were trying to hit everything out,” said Bennet (5-2), who struck out seven and walked one before giving way to Randy Bowman in the ninth. “I just threw strikes and kept them off-balance.”

Off-balance is exactly the way the Hornets (4-7 in conference and 18-13 overall) looked. All four of their hits were singles, and their only run came as a result of a two-base error by Cypress backup shortstop Eddie Evans in the sixth inning.

By that time, Cypress (7-3, 17-7) already had a 6-0 lead. The Chargers scored single runs in the first and fourth innings off losing pitcher Bob Hernandez (4-7), and then scored four in the fifth on Bert Lizarraga’s grand slam, his first of two home runs.

Mark Baca, who was 3 for 3 with four runs scored, led off the fifth with a single and Greg Villargel walked. Fullerton Coach Mike Sgobba replaced left-hander Hernandez with right-handed, side-armer Rob DeYoung. DeYoung got James Jackle to pop out, walked John Morin to load the bases. He then retired Chris Kocman on another pop out for the second out.

That left Lizarraga as Cypress’ last chance, and he came through. Looking like a golfer, Lizarraga lofted a low, outside pitch just over the left-center field fence to make it 6-0.

Cypress scored twice more in the sixth, added another run on a bases-empty home run by Lizarraga in the seventh and two more in the eighth. On the day, the Chargers routed five Fullerton pitchers for 11 hits, and that’s not the kind of pitching the Hornets need if they expect to get back in the pennant race.

“We had a pitching breakdown today,” Sgobba said. “We’re going to need better pitching if we’re going to get any momentum or consistency going.”

In other South Coast Conference action:

Golden West 3, Cerritos 1--Reliever Gary Buckels, making his 20th appearance in Golden West’s 23 games, worked three perfect innings to save the Rustlers’ upset win at Cerritos. Cerritos (10-1, 22-3), which was undefeated in conference going into Saturday, now leads second-place Golden West (8-3, 17-4-2) by two games.

Saddleback 8, Orange Coast 4--John Sinclair pitched a complete game and allowed only one earned run as the Gauchos (4-7, 11-12) beat the struggling Pirates (3-8, 8-14) at Costa Mesa. Steve Nichols and Joe Holden led the Saddleback attack by getting three hits each.

Mt. San Antonio 8, Santa Ana 6--The Mounties (5-6, 13-9) scored twice in the bottom of the seventh inning to beat the Dons (6-4, 19-7) at Walnut.