Skyline baseball defeated Cañada College 5-3 in their first game of the three-game series Tuesday, March 18 at the Skyline Baseball Field. 

Freshman pitcher Steven Dalton started the game, pitching a total of six innings, giving up five hits and two runs. This was his second conference win of the season. Dalton went scoreless through five innings but faced some pushback from Cañada in the top of the sixth inning after two runs were scored. 

“I started off pretty good, got a little tired towards the end,” Dalton said. “We battled through it, we got through the inning.”

Dalton also mentioned that the defense came through when they needed to help push through the inning and leave Cañada at only two runs. 

“I just trust my defense, I got good people all around,” Dalton said.

Skyline’s offense got started in the second and third inning, scoring four runs to make the score 4-0 by the top of the fourth inning. 

Head Coach Tony Bruincardi said they were possibly a little overly aggressive starting, but cleaned it up by staying focused and making sure pitching was on point.

“We made some mistakes ourselves, but we kept competing and at the end of the day our pitching did exactly what we needed them to do,” Bruincardi said. “Steven and Tyler [Pechetti] were outstanding.”

Cañada was able to come back in the top of the sixth inning and the top of the eighth inning by scoring three runs to make the score 4-3. However, Skyline’s offense got some insurance runs in the eighth inning after freshman second baseman Santino Nanez scored on a wild pitch to make the score 5-3. 

With a two-run lead, in the top of the ninth inning, sophomore pitcher Tyler Pechetti sealed the game with three consecutive strikeouts. 

Pechetti said he knew he had to finish the game strong to give Skyline the win. 

“I had to get us out of there with the win,” Pechetti said. “I had to find some inner energy somewhere.”

Pechetti also said the first strikeout in the top of the ninth inning boosted his momentum to finish the inning strong. 

“I was just trying to focus on breathing and clearing the mind with each and every pitch and executing over and over again,” Pechetti said.

Pechetti was brought in to relieve Dalton in the top of the seventh inning and out of the 12 batters faced, Pechetti struck out five, giving up only one hit. 

The win was Skyline’s fourth in conference play and they will look to continue their seven game win streak at Cañada College Thursday, March 20 at 2:30 p.m.