Baseball: Roadrunners beat San Diego Mesa 8-4 for first win of 2016

A five-run, sixth-inning by Rio Hondo College helped propel the Roadrunners to their first win of the season, an 8-4 non-conference victory over visiting San Diego Mesa College on Thursday in Whittier.

Rio Hondo (1-5) sent nine batters to the plate during the go-ahead rally in the sixth and totaled six hits. Nick Giambalvo got things going with a lead-off triple and came in to score on a RBI single by Matt Munoz. Randy Buenrostro smacked a two-run single, Mauricio Guadarrama hit a run-scoring single, and Mike Hernandez also drove in a run with a two-out single to close out the scoring in the frame.

Fernando Rosales put an exclamation point on the win with a solo homerun in the seventh.

Starting pitcher Brady Carlson allowed three earned runs and nine hits over 6 1/3 innings to pick up the win. The Rio Hondo bullpen of Jonathan Duran, Avery Vasquez, Preston Brown, and Kevin Chavez was nearly perfect over the final 2 2/3 innings, allowing just one hit.

At the plate, Giambalvo (2 for 4, 2 RBI), Guadarrama (2 for 3, 1 RBI), and Rosales (2 for 4, 1 RBI) all had two hits.

Rio Hondo looks to keep the momentum going when the Roadrunners return to action on Saturday (Feb. 13) at 2 p.m. against Allan Hancock College in a game played at College of the Canyons.