By Jim Richards
The pitching has been terrific and the hitting not far behind and the SMCC baseball team is only two games away from second place as the toughest road swing on the schedule is on the way.
The Cougars began a five-game road swing in spectacular fashion Tuesday with a double-header sweep of Arizona Western.
Left-hander Mark Guest (6-2) fired a four-hit shutout in a 4-0 win in Tuesday’s opener. Right-hander Joseph Lopez (7-2) allowed one run through six innings and picked up the win in the nightcap. Dean Espy went 3-for-5 with two doubles and Nico Rosthenhausler had a double and a triple.
Next up is a double-header at Pima CC on Saturday. After that, a critical home-and-home series with No.6 Central Arizona, which will host Tuesday’s game at 2 p.m. The two teams, which split a series at the start of the conference season, will return to South Mountain Wednesday at 3 p.m.
“This (road swing) is going to be either good or bad with us,” SMCC coach Todd Eastin said. “We’re going to have to learn to play on the road or we’ll sink ourselves.”
The Cougars (20-8) have won eight of 10 heading into this weekend’s play and pulled to within two games of second-place Central (22-6) in the ACCAC Div.I race.
While the Cougars swept AWC, Central split with ACCAC-II front-running Scottsdale on Tuesday.
Should the Cougars pass Central in the standings, they’d likely host a Region I Div.I playoff series as they did a year ago, only to fall to eventual Region I winner Central.
Eastin has seen enough of his club on the road of late to come of the opinion that home-field advantage won’t be all that big of a deal.
“Three weeks ago I would have probably told you it was huge,” Eastin said. “As we’re starting to play a little better on the road it’s getting where our pitchers are throwing strikes and we’re playing a lot better away from home.”
Pima dropped a pair of games to Yavapai Tuesday to move to four games back of the Cougars in the standings. Eastin feels his club is doing a good job of not looking too far ahead.
“I think our guys have done a real good job of playing one game at a time,” Eastin said. “Nobody talks about playing Central or Yavapai. They go through a day-by-day process and practice by practice.”
Rosthenhausler was the hitting star prior to the road swing, hitting consecutive homers in wins over Chandler-Gilbert, including an eighth-inning, two-run shot to win Saturday’s comeback 4-1 win over Chandler-Gilbert.
Rosthenhausler entered the week fourth in the league in hitting at .415. He’s second in the league in runs scored with 37 and tied for the lead in hits (61). Espy is second on the team in hitting (.401) followed by Randy Henry (.385) and Josh Garcia (.381).
Left-hander Kyle Ottoson is the league’s top winner with a 9-0 record and a team-best ERA of 2.21.