No. 6 Riverside rallies past Vaqueros, 5-4

Peter McEvoy blooped a two-out single into short left field on Tuesday and John Gonzalez sprinted home from first base to lift No. 6 Riverside to a 5-4 walkoff win over SBCC in a nonconference baseball game at Samuel Evans Park.

Tyler Rosen drilled a pair of solo homers for the Vaqueros (19-13) in a battle of first-place teams. SBCC, ranked No. 12 in the Southern Cal coaches' poll, leads the WSC North at 10-5 and Riverside (25-8) shares the Orange Empire lead with Orange Coast at 12-3.

Riverside won its fourth straight game and improved to 15-1 at home.

Rosen, a sophomore outfielder from Palos Verdes, leads the Vaqueros in homers (6) and RBIs (22).

John Jensen went 2-5 for SBCC, extending his hitting streak to eight games. He's batting .457 (16-35) in his last eight appearances.

SBCC went ahead 1-0 in the fifth when Joseph Hamilton stroked a lead-off triple and scored on a two-out sacrifice fly by Reinhard Lautz. Rosen homered to right-center in the sixth, making it 2-0. Jake Holton doubled and scored on a single by Zack Stockton, boosting the lead to 3-0.

Elliott Reece went the first five innings for the Vaqueros, holding the Tigers to one run on one hit. He struck out five and walked four. Steven Elliott (6-1) pitched the last 1.2 innings and suffered his first loss.

The Tigers got on the board on a two-out, two-run double by Garrett McKee in the sixth.

Another solo homer by Rosen, a leadoff blast to right-center in the seventh, made it 4-2. Riverside tied it 4-4 on a 2-run homer by first baseman Ryan Mota in the eighth.

The Vaqueros will host the state's second-ranked team, Orange Coast, in a two-game series on Thursday at 3 p.m. and Friday at 2:30 p.m. at Pershing Park.