Skyline College’s baseball team lost 7-3 against Hartnell College in their last home game of the season on Thursday, April 25.

Skyline’s baseball team was closer to the playoffs before the game started. Dino Nomicos, the head coach, pointed out the team had to win one of the last two games of the season in order to make it to the playoffs.

“It’s playoffs atmosphere, we have to win so we can get a chance to enter to the state playoffs, so we got to won one of them from today or tomorrow.”

Skyline starting pitcher Nate Rumb met the turbulence and lost five runs with a solo home run hit by Hartnell’s Travis Madison in the first and second innings. Hartnell’s leadoff hitter had a single with two runners on bases, and Skyline right fielder Max Jenkins made an error on catching the ball, which allowed the runners on base to score.

Regarding of the first two innings, Skyline’s catcher Matt Leong spoke out after the game.

“Honestly, I feel like coming to the game is pretty locked in and (the pitcher is) ready to pitch. I think he might have gotten cut off in the moment, … it just might the ball might have slipped out.”

However, at the plate, Skyline had twelve total hits in the game but only scored three runs by one single and two sacrifice flies.

Regarding of Skyline’s offense, Nomicos explained what went wrong during the game.

“They just didn’t come in the clutch, so when we have a runner in scoring position, they didn’t get timely hits,” Nomicos said.

As for losing the game, Nomicos further expressed the team’s shortcomings.

“We just didn’t make our pitches, and they got some key hits,” Nomicos said. “We just got down 5-0; it’s hard to battle back when you’re down by five. We just can’t get some runs.”

Although Skyline lost the last home game of the season, Tony Brunicardi, Skyline’s assistant coach highly affirmed the performance of the players throughout the whole season.

“I thought all of our freshmen continue to get better throughout the year. Playing at the college level was good for them. Noah Marcelo, Andrew Roy, Mitchel Plane all progressed through the season, and our pitching was really good throughout. Dylan Mcdonald, Paul Ferrari, … Aiden Yarwood, Derek Flowers —they all did a really nice job. The pitching carried us through some ups and downs. I think every single guy brought something to the table, which is nice to see our freshman really develop well,” Brunicardi said.

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