The article below originally appeared in the San Mateo Daily Journal and is being reprinted with permission.

With the California Community College Athletics Association’s baseball season getting closer to the end of its regular season and the top of the Coast Conference Golden Gate’s division so closely contested, the College of San Mateo can ill afford a slip up.

And Saturday’s game against the City College of San Francisco could have been one of those contest that on paper don’t look like much of a challenge, but can come back to bite you in the rear if you don’t take care of business.

But the Bulldogs, behind the hitting of Brandon Defazio and the pitching of Andrew Herrera, kept focused on the task at hand and beat the Rams 7-1.

With the win, CSM (12-5) stayed within a half-game of first place Chabot with five to plan — including one against the Gladiators.

Herrera remains unbeaten on the year, winning his fifth game of the season. The right-hander scattered six hits, struck out three and allowed no earned runs over seven innings of baseball.

The Bulldogs jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead after two innings.

Dane Vande Guchte led off the first with a double down the right field line and made it to third on a one-out wild pitch. Defazio then delivered his first big hit of the game, pulling the ball down the left field line for an RBI double. The two doubles seemed to rattle the CCSF pitcher Tyler Scharn, who then went on to hit both Ryan O’Malley and Kailen Robinson to load the bases. Scharn then walked Jarrett Costa for the inning’s second run.

In the second, the top of the CSM order was at it again. With one out, Vande Guchte singled and Craig followed suit with a base knock of his own. The situation then called for another big hit by Defazio, who delivered in three-base fashion by stroking a triple in the gap to clear the bases and make it 4-0.

A Vande Guchte sacrifice fly in the bottom of the third made it 5-0.

And that was more than enough for Herrera who ran into a bit of trouble in the second after an error produced a no-out, runner on third base situation the Rams cashed in on.

But from there, Herrera allowed just one more CCSF base runner to reach scoring position.

After seven innings of work, Herrera was spelled by Vincent Coci, Skyler Fuss and DJ Sharabi, who combined ran through the last six outs in perfect fashion.