The Mountain Lions beat the visiting Diablo Valley Vikings 15-4 on Feb. 18 in a 13-run inning home rematch, after losing to them 9-2 on Feb. 11.

Pitcher Skylar Roenicke (De Anza No. 27) started the game for the Mountain Lions — despite giving up a run in the first inning, Roenicke and the rest of the Mountain Lions turned a double play in each of the first four innings.

The Vikings scored another run in the top of the third inning, but by the bottom half, right fielder Evan McRae (De Anza No. 19), 20, business administration major, hit an RBI double and designated hitter Aiden Van (De Anza No. 8) followed up with getting McRae in to score another run across the board with an RBI groundout to the Vikings second baseman, tying the game 2-2.

The Vikings recovered, scoring one run each in the fourth and fifth innings, retaking the lead 4-2.

By the fifth inning, Roenicke exited with two strikeouts to his name.

Pitcher Kaleb Dela Cuesta Sato (De Anza No. 7), Trenton Farnham (De Anza No. 34) and Jay Hernandez (De Anza No. 33) came in to pitch after Roenicke and locked Diablo Valley out, not giving up any runs. 

Coming into the bottom of the seventh inning, the De Anza offense started to get hot as shortstop Drew Paxton (De Anza No. 2) started the inning off with a single to left field, later stealing second when a ball slipped past the catcher.

Second baseman Luca Calderone (De Anza No. 1) singled his way to right field, leaving runners at first and third, then stole second base, getting himself into scoring position for McRae.

McRae, who was already having an offensive day with a single in the first inning, run batted in double in the third inning and another double in the fifth inning. 

McRae, with his fourth hit in the ballgame, singled to get Paxton home, making the score 4-3 with runners on first and third. 

Van then put the ball in play for the shortstop for the Vikings, who threw it to second base but McRae was safe, as Calderone came in to score, tying the game. 

At this point, the Vikings had to swap out pitcher Noah Klube (Diablo Valley No. 11) for pitcher Cael Green (Diablo Valley No. 4).

With one out and bases loaded, third baseman Alec Ortiz (De Anza No. 16), 20, computer science major, stepped up to the plate with three balls and two strikes on him, managing to hit the ball to the warning track — just missing a grand slam home run. Ortiz hit a sacrifice fly, making the score 5-4 and taking back the lead for De Anza. 

The Mountain Lions went on to score 10 more runs after this and entered the top of the eighth inning up 15-4.

McRae hit again in the bottom of the seventh inning as he got his fifth hit in the ballgame, making him five-for-five on the day with 3 runs batted in.

The bottom of the seventh inning sealed the game — no runs were scored in the next two innings.

“I found myself down 3-2 and telling myself positive things, like you got it,” Ortiz said.

“It felt amazing; we had to bounce back,” McRae said. “We had a tough loss against them the other week, so it’s good to beat them this time.” 

The Mountain Lions are 9-2 over the season, scoring double digits in five games, and remain undefeated 5-0 at home.

McRae said the team’s motivation through the first eleven games came from “being a tight group and working hard everyday.”

Head coach Don Watkins said he had a feeling about the flavor of juice in the team’s dugout.

“I told the trainer to get the Hulk Juice (pre-workout supplement) out of here because they (the players) are not Hulk,” Watkins said. “They scored 13 runs when I told him to take it out.”

Watkins credited his hitting coach Peter Saldana for the Mountain Lions’ 13-run seventh inning.

“Saldana just told them (the team) to see the ball up and hit it,” Watkins said.