KING CITY — The King City Mustang baseball team won a close one and lost a close one in last week’s away and home series with the Carmel Padres. King City lost 4-3 to the Padres in a game played on Tuesday May 3rd and won the home game on Friday by a 2-1 score. King City is tied for second in the Mission Trail Athletic League at 12-4 with Soledad and Greenfield and will complete the regular season with home and away games with the Mustangs.
“It is going to be a lot of fun this week as we are playing good baseball and so is Soledad,” said King City head coach Lorenzo Espino. “We have to play our best and so do they to get into the playoffs. Our pitching is doing well and we are hitting the baseball so we will see how things go for us.”
In the first game with the Carmel the Mustangs held a 3-0 lead until the bottom of the fourth when the Padres cut the lead to 3-2.
The Padres scored two runs in the bottom of the fifth to tie the game at 3-3 and ended the inning by scoring what would be the winning run.
“It was a tough loss,” said Espino. “Clay Barbree pitched well enough to win and we knew we could play with them (Padres). David Lopez finished the game with two hits and David Ortiz added two hits. We outhit Carmel nine to six and we committed two errors.”
At the Friday game in King City Brian Lopez earned the complete game victory and Cedric Perez, Clay Barbree, and Tommy Stephens each finished with two hits apiece. Lopez had six strikeouts and did not allow a walk.
“Brian kept the Carmel batters off balance to lead us on the mound,” said Coach Espino. “Cedric Perez made some great stops at third base and played a strong all-around game.”
King City hosted the Aztecs yesterday and will play at Soledad tomorrow afternoon.
