Fullerton, California- The Golden State Athletic (GSAC) conference is typically a top 5 conference at this level nationally. It’s the premier conference on the west coast at this level and in a regular year can put 3 teams into the national tournament despite only having 1 automatic qualifier. This weeks big series features two teams looking to distance themselves nationally from the rest of the pack with some resume-defining wins.
Who’s Playing
#10 Hope International (HIU) enters this week with a 13-3 record and 4-1 in GSAC play. #16 Vanguard is 14-3 overall and 2-1 in conference play. Hope International is 3-1 versus Top 25 programs this season, all 4 of those games being against Westmont. In the opposite dugout Vanguard is 2-2 against Top 25 programs this year with wins over #25 Keiser and #8 STU, while their losses are #1 Southeastern and #4 LSUS.
History
Vanguard leads the all-time series 20-14, the last 8 meetings have all been in Costa Mesa, which are home games for the Lions. HIU is 5-9 at home in the series, and they are also 4-6 in their last 10 meetings. These games are generally well played, and closely played, only 5 times in the series 34 games has a team scored more than 10 runs in a game. Vanguard was the winner of the last meeting 7-6 on April 2nd, 2022.
Schedule
Game 1- Thursday 3/2 2p (Pacific)
Game 2- Friday 3/3 2p (Pacific)
Game 3- Saturday 3/4 11a (Pacific)
Game 4*- Saturday 3/4 2p (Pacific)
*note- Game 4 is not a game that counts towards GSAC standings.
How to watch
Click on the corresponding game to be linked to the website!
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The Teams
Hope International (CA) is 11-3 at home this year, and is 4-1 in their last 5 games; while HIU does not have a long baseball history; they certainly have made it quickly. After their first season in 2016, there has not been a losing season in HIU history, they’ve been a regular in opening round play, and have even made the trip north to Idaho at the end of May. This Royals team on offense has 5 different bats that are regularly in the lineup with 10+ runs batted in this year. Omar Veloz leads the team in average, David Rivera leads the team in hits, and Max Jung-Goldberg is tied with Veloz for the most runs batted in on the squad. On the mound the name to watch comes out of the pen in Steven Ordorica. The right handed senior has made 9 appearances this season, without making a start. He is 2nd on the team in innings pitched, has 3 saves, and a 4-0 record. 6 different arms have started multiple games this season for the Royals, who have a team earned run average of 3.31.
Vanguard (CA) is 14-3 overall with 2 of those 3 losses coming against top 5 teams nationally. The Lions are 9-1 in their last 10 games, with their lone loss in that stretch coming against Arizona Christian in a 1 run game. Tommy Rodriguez is one of the bats to watch as he leads the team with 21 runs batted in; there are also 3 players with 20 plus hits on the year. On the mound Justin Graves and Dylan McDonald have been lights out, then there’s Jackson Webber coming out of the pen whos leads the team in wins this season. Webber also has yet to give up an earned run in an impressive 15.1 innings pitched, while surrendering just 4 hits so far.
Final Thoughts
When you look at the overall scheduling Vanguard has played the better schedule overall, in fact I would expect 2 of those 3 HIU losses are games they feel they should have won. The Royals are 4-2 in one run games this season, their only other loss was by 2 to a ranked Westmont team. The big thing in this series will be the arms of Vanguard versus the Royals bats. HIU has had a bigger bite on offense than Vanguard has, but the starting pitching of VU has been to greater effect than that of HIU. Winner of this series can expect to make some leaps forward with ratings just a week away. But both of these regardless of the outcome will be in the Top 25 come the middle of next week. They’ve both earned that so far this year.
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Robby Gutierrez