IRVINE, CA – The Arroyo Seco Saints fell to the Orange County Riptide 11-5 at Great Park in Irvine, Calif. on Sunday afternoon.

The Riptide broke the game open in the bottom of the first inning, scoring a total of four runs.

In the top of the second inning, the Saints managed to add one run to the scoreboard. With first baseman Luc Lipcius (Tennessee) on first, catcher Thomas McCarthy (San Francisco) hit a single to right field, which brought in the Saints’ first run of the ballgame.

The Riptide came back in the bottom of the second inning, adding their fifth run to the scoreboard.

Despite being down by four, the Saints rallied in the top of the third inning to bring home two more runs. Shortstop Oscar Serratos (Georgia Tech) sent a grounder to short and was safe at first on a throwing error. Then, third baseman Drew Cowley (Pomona) sent a hard-hit grounder that got past the Riptide’s third baseman. Left fielder Morgan Allen (St. Edward’s) brought Serratos home with a line drive to right field. Cowley then scored on center fielder Nolan Tressler’s (Georgia Southern) ground out to the Riptide’s second baseman.

“I think they ran some good arms out there today but we just couldn’t get our bats going, we ran into a little bit of fatigue,” Tressler said.

Left-handed pitcher Grant Young (San Francisco) started on the mound for the Saints, and was relieved by righty Luis Ramirez (Long Beach) in the bottom of the third.

The Saints were unable to stop the Riptide’s offense as they scored two more runs in the bottom of the third, making the score 7-3.

The Riptide added another run in the fifth, sixth, and two in the seventh inning to take an 11-3 lead.

With a player on first and no outs, Serratos made an impressive double play to keep the Riptide from increasing their lead.

“I saw it bounce off of home plate, I tried to focus on getting one out rather than two. I just sat back and I was able to get the double play,” Serratos said. “We are all just in the process of learning new positions right now.”

The Saints fought hard all way to the ninth inning, as they added their final two runs of the game. Tressler hit a line drive, which found a gap in left field. He later went on to steal second. Lipcius then came up to the plate and hit a single to right field. With two runners on, designated hitter Nikolas Pagan (Hartford) hit a grounder to the pitcher, after being thrown out at first, the Riptide attempted to make a double play at home, but Tressler was safe, bringing in the Saints fourth run of the game. McCarthy then brought home Lipcius with a single to short, to make the final score 11-5.

“I think this is a very good team and this team is going to win a lot of games. I also think this is a very good league and because of that, no matter how good you are, you can’t think that they are going to give you the game, you have to show up hungry,” head coach Aaron Milam said.

The Riptide and Saints will face each other again on Tuesday at Jackie Robinson Memorial Field. The first pitch will be thrown at 6:05 p.m.

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• Saints Reporter, Grace Mikuriya; Saints Photographer, Garrison Pena
• View the live stream of the game on the Saints’ YouTube channel.