Huntington Beach, Calif. - The offense for Golden West came ready to swing out from pitch one as they scored at least one run in each of the first, five innings en route to a 11-3 win over Fullerton College.
Lead off man and designated hitter, Seth Nelson, led the way for the offense with three hits in four at bats with a run batted in. Zakk Morgan, Enrique Bennett, and Ezele Wicks each recorded two hits while Wicks led the Rustlers (25-14, 11-10) with three RBI's on the afternoon.
Nelson led off the bottom of the first with a double and then advanced to third base on a passed ball, set up a productive Nelson Padilla ground out to second base for a 1-0 lead. Then in the second inning, Jesse Fonteboa got the bench going with his team leading fourth triple of the season to deep center field. Wicks would follow up the triple by forcing an error by the third baseman to score Fonteboa and advance to second for a 2-0 Rustler advantage. A couple batters later and a clutch two out RBI single by Nelson would extend the lead to 3-0. The offense wasn't done taking advantage of the Hornets (10-27, 5-16) fielding miscues as Padilla would reach on an error by the second baseman that would score Nelson to make it a 4-0 ball game at the end of the second inning.
Golden West would tack on a single run in the third and fourth innings to extend it's lead to 6-1 after four complete innings of play. The final offensive explosion came in the bottom of the fifth inning as the Rustlers put the game out of reach by plating four more runs to take a commanding 10-1 lead. The inning was highlighted with a Wicks two RBI double down the left field line followed up by a Justin Simpson two RBI triple down the right field line.
Starter Eric Romo earned his sixth win of the season on the mound going six innings while scattering six hits and giving up one run with seven strike outs. Michael Olivares came in for two innings of relief in the seventh and eighth innings surrending two hits whiles striking out two.
NEXT: The Rustlers await post season seeding meeting that will happen on Monday, April 29th for their next opponent.
