Cedar Valley Sweeps Brookhaven
LANCASTER, Texas – Make it four in a row.
Dallas College Cedar Valley's baseball team swept the three-game Dallas Athletic Conference series versus Dallas College Brookhaven, winning the last two games, 11-8 on the road Friday and 6-5 at home Saturday.
The Suns (21-11, 9-6 DAC) matched their longest winning streak (4) of the season after securing Saturday's victory. They swept a pair of doubleheaders at Arlington Baptist University two weeks earlier.
In Friday's seven-inning run-rule victory – originally scheduled as a home game, but moved to Farmers Branch, Texas, due to a campus power outage – Cedar Valley scored 13 runs in the second inning. Leading 14-7 entering the fourth, the Suns put four runs on the board in the fourth and fifth innings to blow the game open. They scored at least one run in every inning but the third.
Cedar Valley pounded 23 hits, including a handful by Daniel Brandon III, who was 5-for-5 with a home run, double and three runs batted in. Ryan Talley went 4-for-6 with a double and an RBI. Caden Robertson had three hits, including a homer, drove in four runs and had a stolen base in six at-bats. Antonio Sabala was 2-for-3 with a triple, two RBI, three walks and five runs scored. Elian Gonzales was 2-for-6 with two RBI. Matthew Marsic went 2-for-5 with two RBI, a walk and two stolen bases. Cooper Brewer tripled, drove in a pair and walked three times in three plate appearances. Jayden Ramos had a home run, three RBI and three walks in four trips to the plate.
Eleven different Suns had at least one hit.
Cedar Valley pitcher Connor Donathan (2-2) got the win in relief, offsetting four runs, four hits and four walks against a season-high nine strikeouts over the final five innings.
In the series finale, the Suns overcame a 5-4 deficit when Robertson crushed a two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth. It was his second home run of the game, and it secured the Suns' first conference sweep of the year.
Brookhaven scored three runs in the seventh to take the one-run lead. But closer Jeremiah Darrough didn't allow the Bears to cross home plate over the final two innings to pick up his second win of the season. He gave up three runs on two hits and three walks, and had three punchouts in three innings of relief.
Starter Jaxon Simmons scattered six hits and four walks, while giving up two runs and fanning a season-high nine batters in six innings.
Robertson went 3-for-4 with two home runs, a double and five RBI. It was his first multi-home run game of the season, and his five runs batted in matched a season high. He's driven in five runs in three games this year.
Talley was 2-for-3 with a walk. Blaine Thomas went 2-for-4 with a double and two runs scored. Marsic and Ramos both had a double. Gonzales and Brandon III each had one of the Suns' 11 hits.
Cedar Valley is scheduled to host East Texas Baptist University Junior Varsity in a doubleheader at noon Monday.