Baseball Recap: Orange Lutheran Takes Down Rancho Cucamonga in a Playoff Battle

Two teams were on the hunt for playoff glory, but only Orange Lutheran walked away with it. Their pitcher stepped up to hand the Rancho Cucamonga Cougars a 5-0 shutout on Thursday. The victory made it back-to-back wins for the Lancers.

The result came thanks to Gary Morse's shutout, as he gave up just a hit and racked up six Ks. He has been nothing but reliable on the mound: he hasn't given up more than one earned run in four consecutive appearances.

At the plate, Orange Lutheran saw seven different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Rock Akahi, who went 2-for-3 with two RBI and one double. Those two RBI gave Akahi a new career-high. Josiah Hartshorn was another, going 1-for-3 with two runs and one double.

Orange Lutheran was getting hits left and right and finished the game having posted a batting average of .375. They easily outclassed their opponents in that department as Rancho Cucamonga only posted a batting average of .048.

Lancers

Previous Games (Home)

05/15/25 vs Rancho Cucamonga	5-0
04/30/25 vs Mater Dei	3-1
04/25/25 vs Servite	7-0
04/23/25 vs Servite	11-1
04/17/25 vs Santa Margarita	1-0
+ 3 more games

Orange Lutheran's win was their eighth straight at home, which pushed their record up to 23-6. Those home victories came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 0.9 runs on average over those games. As for Rancho Cucamonga, their defeat dropped their record down to 19-10.

Looking ahead, Orange Lutheran will venture away from home to challenge Los Alamitos at 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday. The two teams have allowed few runs on average (the Lancers 2.1, the Griffins 3.1) so any runs scored will be well earned. Rancho Cucamonga does not have any more games scheduled as of now.