American River College completed the two game sweep of West Valley College by defeating the Vikings 1-0 in Saratoga on Saturday.  It was the Beavers first shutout win since blanking Hartnell College 8-0 on February 10 last season.  Sophomore RHP Hayden Josephson (Granite Bay, pictured) struck out 5 in 6 innings of work, allowing just four singles and one walk to pick up his first win of the season.  Sophomore LHP Ryan Marcoccia (Del Campo) came on in relief and threw two hitless innings and Sophomore RHP Nick Perry (Rio Linda) earned his first save of the year by striking out two of the three batters he faced in the 9^th inning.   

After tallying 7 runs on 11 hits at home on Friday, the offense was a little tougher to come by on Saturday.  Freshman DH Jake Running (Mesa Verde) led the way with a pair of hits, but it was the Beavers baserunning, 3B Sonny Ledford's (Rio Americano) in particular that got the win for A.R.C.  With the score still tied at 0-0 in the top of the 7^th Ledford walked and advanced to 2^nd on a ball in the dirt that did not skip away very far from the catcher.  With one out and Ledford on 2^nd Jake Running hit a ground ball to the left side that looked like it was going to get through but West Valley's shortstop made a nice play ranging in the hole to stop the ball, appearing to keep Ledford at 2^nd.  However, as he was fully extended the shortstops glove came off of his hand with the ball in it allowing Ledford enough time to barely beat the throw to 3^rd.  After Running advanced to 2^nd on a strikeout on a ball in the dirt by freshman RF Gideon Branch (Rio Americano), C Casey DeMello (Valley Christian) was up with a chance to be a hero.  On the 2-1 pitch there was another ball in the dirt however that skipped just far enough away from the catcher to allow Ledford to score the games only run.  DeMello would later walk but the Beavers could not score after that. 

West Valley swept A.R.C. in the two game series last year, but the Beavers swept the Vikings in 2017 and now again in 2019.  A.R.C. faces a busy week with Yuba College coming to Beaver Field on Tuesday for a 2:00 p.m. game, flowed by Shasta College at home on Thursday, Feather River College at home on Friday and a trip to Redding on Saturday to play at Shasta College.