College of Marin Baseball tasted victory on Thursday as they defeated the Diablo Valley College Vikings 7-6 in Pleasant Hill. The game was eerily familiar to their 6-5 loss at Cabrillo on Tuesday. Marin led 7-0 over DVC and made key plays down the stretch to keep the home team from completing their comeback. Nick Roth earned the victory for the Mariners with six strong innings and Matthew Lozovoy recorded his first career save notching the final eight outs of the game.
Both teams matched zeroes to start the game before the Mariners broke the deadlock in the top of the third inning. Jacob Berg reached on an error with one out for Landen Moran who delivered a double down the left field line to put the Mariners on top 1-0.
After a scoreless fourth inning, Marin added in on in the top of the fifth. The Mariner loaded the bases with a walk, single and hit by pitch for Casey Armusewicz. The freshman delivered a run scoring single to right, doubling Marin's advantage to 2-0. With Conor Bardue at the plate, a wild pitch scored Anthony Pomillia to put the Mariners ahead 3-0.
The sixth inning saw the Mariners really break the game open as they scored four times. They loaded the bases with one away before Anthony Pomilia walked in Marin's fourth run. Davis Barkocy came to the plate and hit a sacrifice fly to center scoring Berg. With runners on second and third with two outs Armusewicz doubled to left center plating two more and giving the Mariners a 7-0 lead.
Nick Roth started for Marin and breezed through the first five innings, allowing just one walk and five singles while striking out five opposing hitters. He put two on with two outs in the sixth and yielded an RBI single and a wild pitch to score a pair for Diablo Valley and cut the Mariners lead to 7-2.
Roth was replaced by Tyler Quintanilla who retired his first batter, but faced trouble the rest of his stint. The freshman allowed a single, double, walk and double, scoring two for the Vikings, and reducing the Marin lead to 7-4. Lozovoy took over and manage to quash the threat and maintain the Mariners lead.
The Vikings kept attacking and brought it closer in the eighth inning. Lozovoy remained on the mound and allowed a walk to lead off. A stolen base and an error put runners on the corners before a wild pitched moved each up 90 feet, and plating another run for DVC. After a walk, a double scored another and put runners on second and third, with still nobody out. The next batter hit a potentially game tying sacrifice fly, but Jacob Berg gunned down the runner from third at the plate to keep Marin the lead.
Marin failed to score in the top of the ninth as Lozovoy worked around two singles in the bottom of the ninth to save the game for the Mariners.
Roth earned the victory for Marin with six strong innings, and allowed only two runs. Armusewicz had two hits and three RBI while Moran and Pomilia each had an RBI and two runs scored.
The victory evened the Mariners record at 2-2 with a double header against Folsom Lake on tap for Friday, February 1st.