The San Diego Mesa College baseball team is off to a .500 start to their 2020 campaign. They have opened up by hosting and traveling to out of town teams scattered throughout the Los Angeles and Riverside area to start with a 6-6 record.
The Olympians are looking to build on their success from last year. Coach Steven Sanchez led his squad to the school’s third conference championship in the past 25 years, after ending in a tie with Southwestern, and finishing with a consecutive appearance in the CCCAA Regional Tournament, making it to the Super Regional round.
There is some special buzz around this team. According to the PCAC Preseason SID’s Poll, the Olympians are the favorites to repeat as conference champions, receiving two more votes than both Southwestern and Palomar.
Although a lot of quality players left from last year’s team, this squad is led by returning sophomores IF Prescott Horn, IF Kevin Van Linge, 1B Jorge Martinez and C Joel Escalante, the latter 3 making the 2019 All-PCAC Honorable Mention Team. As of February 19, Horn has a batting average of .383 and is leading the team in steals with 4, while Martinez is hitting .364 with a team leading 20 RBI’s.
Along with these familiar faces, freshman local Rumble Reyes is off to a scorching hot start. He is currently batting .457 with 4 home runs to add on.
But really, the whole team has been swinging it well at the plate. The group batting average is at .317 and everyone is getting on base at a .424 rate. Defense and pitching are the main concerns so far for the team.
The team and its opponents will be finished with long-distance bus rides at the end of the month and start conference play Thursday, February 27th as they visit Southwestern College. They finish the two-game series two days later by hosting the Jaguars on the leap day. From then on, they will play the rest of the PCAC every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday until the second to last week of April.
