The Cerritos Falcons soured over the Roadrunners 6-1. It was a close game until Daniel Marsical, Jr. broke the scoreless tie with an RBI at the bottom of the fourth inning to give Cerritos a 1-0 lead.
The Cerritos offense exploded at the bottom of the sixth. First with an RBI, once again by Marsical to make it 2-0, then an RBI triple by Hasan Stanifer and one more RBI by Dean Ormonde to make it 6-0.
The biggest defensive play of the game came at the top of the seventh. Outfielder Jason Givens gunned it to home plate as Marsical. Jr tagged out the runner before he scored.
At the top of the eighth, Roadrunner Jordan Salgado broke Justin Almeda’s shutout streak with a home run, but it wasn’t enough. The Falcons would go on to win the game 6-1 in a memorable game for the alumni. Almost 80 alums attended the game.
Before the game, legendary Falcons coach George Horton did the ceremonial first pitch. When the game was over Horton gathered the team together to give them advice about life and baseball.
Horton was an assistant coach for Cerritos from 1976 to 1985. He then became the head coach the following year. He also coached and won the 2004 College World Series at Cal State Fullerton and coached at the University of Oregon.
“For the most part they came ready to entertain we knew we had the alumni here today and they went out to put on a show, I mean the energy was amazing from beginning to end, they came out throwing strikes, playing defense, running bases, you know hitting the ball,” coach Vic said.
Coach Vic also said that it was a great feeling to play in front of the alumni the way they did and wants to do his best to bring back Cerritos baseball to their old winning ways and will try to end the season on a high note.
Bret Barberie, Cerritos baseball alumni said, “It was nice to see, it looks like they have a good club in the making it was exciting to reunite with a lot of old friends here and at the same time see the facility and hopefully this team will do well int he future and continue to work hard and bring another state championship here at Cerritos.”
Barberie also mentioned that his favorite baseball memory took place in 1986. When the team had a poor season the previous year in 1985, it got worse when a fellow teammate went down to an injury and motivated the 1986 Falcons to dedicate the 86 season to him.
That year the Falcons went 44-5 and won a state championship. Just two years later Barberie went to Seoul, South Korea to represent the United States in the Olympics and became a gold medalist.
Barberie played in the MLB with the Montreal Expos, Florida Marlins, Baltimore Orioles, and Chicago Cubs.
The Falcons have three games left to go. Their final home game of the season will arrive on Thursday, April. 28 against Pasadena City.
