LCSC baseball showing ability to come back from deficits

Outside of its losses, the Lewis-Clark State baseball team cleared a pair of hurdles in its first major test of adversity at the friendly confines this past weekend.

The second-ranked Warriors found themselves in a big hole in the second game of a doubleheader Saturday against College of Idaho, trailing 7-0 going to the bottom of the second. They responded with a 10-spot in the fourth and took care of business from there.

Then in the next game of the series Sunday, LCSC had a 5-4 lead after three before the Yotes manufactured four runs in a five-inning stretch to take an 8-5 advantage heading to the bottom of the ninth.

In a mini-reprisal of a game in 2022 against British Columbia, in which the Warriors rallied from a five-run hole to score six in their half of the ninth to stun the Thunderbirds, LCSC stunned College of Idaho with four two-out runs in the ninth to steal a 9-8 victory.

Those two games spurred the Warriors (11-3) to a four-game sweep of the Yotes and give the team plenty of momentum heading into this weekend’s four-game nonconference home series against Cascade Conference foe Eastern Oregon (1-5).

LCSC hasn’t really needed to conjure up the ability to rally from a deficit for the most part, mainly because the Warriors have scored early in games and kept the lead. LCSC is 6-0 when leading after the first inning, 7-0 after the second and fourth and 10-0 in the fifth and sixth.

Even when trailing in the first two innings, the Warriors are 2-1. The later it gets, on the other hand, the record gets worse. LCSC is 1-3 when trailing from the fifth inning on.

But that one victory came thanks to the Sunday shocker. Coach Jake Taylor said it’s taking place just because it’s baseball.

“Not really sure if it’s attributed to anything other than the game of baseball that has no clock and a team is never out of the fight if they continue to compete and not get caught up in looking at the scoreboard,” Taylor said. “It is always nice to display the ability to come back from a deficit.”

One of the players who played an integral role in the comeback each day was sophomore third baseman Dominic Signorelli. The 6-foot-2, 200-pound transfer from Boise State and Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake, Wash., was part of a three-person platoon situation a year ago at the position with current second baseman Pu’ukani De Sa and former Warrior Coy Stout.

Signorelli seemed to struggle a little bit in making the adjustment, as he played in 23 games, including 19 starts, hitting just .236 with one home run and four RBI.

He again was having some issues at the start of this season. Through the first 10 games, Signorelli was hitting just .176 with five RBI, but showing signs of finally busting out when he tripled twice and drove in a pair of runs in a 7-2 win Feb. 7 at Warner (Fla.) in the final game of the Florida trip.

This past weekend, Signorelli made his impact known by going 9-for-15 (.600) with all three of his homers this season, 10 of his 15 RBI and seven of his 12 runs.

He was 2-for-3 with two runs scored and an RBI in the come-from-behind win Saturday, then had a three-run home run in the second inning and followed that up with a game-winning RBI single in the ninth inning Sunday.

Signorelli closed out the week Monday by going 3-for-5 with an RBI double in the first, an RBI single in the third and a solo home run in the eighth inning of a 9-4 win against the Yotes to finish the sweep.

Taylor said this past weekend’s performance is the tip of the iceberg for the left-handed hitter.

“Dom is athletic and physical and has displayed in practice the past few years what type of player he is capable of becoming,” Taylor said. “He has had a good start to the season and we all hope that his confidence and experience will allow him to continue to grow as a player.”

Walden may be reached at (208) 848-2258, dwalden@lmtribune.com, or on Twitter @waldo9939.