By CHRIS BRANAM
Valley Press Staff Writer
LANCASTER - The bus pulled in before the dawn Friday morning and a bunch of restless players and coaches piled out.
They were tired. They were frustrated by what had happened the night before. They needed to beat somebody.
That somebody was the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes.
The Lancaster JetHawks pummeled the Quakes 11-4 to the delight of a paid attendance of 4,561 Friday night at The Hangar.
The JetHawks evened their record at 31-31 and gained a game in the California League's Valley Division standings. Stockton beat High Desert 4-3 to force a tie for first in the division, and the JetHawks are three games back.
After losing two out of three at Stockton, including a game Thursday night that the JetHawks thought was taken out of their hands by the umpires, there was a decidedly upbeat tone in the clubhouse.
"We were a tough team to beat tonight," said first baseman James Clifford, who got things rolling in the first with a two-run homer off Stan Spencer.
Hitting coach Dana Williams, who saw the JetHawks pound out 14 hits after getting a total of 21 in the three games at Stockton, may have spoken for the entire club when he said that the division title was still in reach.
"If we could just play like this every night," he said, "we'd probably be a little bit better than a .500 club. We're OK. We just need to keep winning."
If the JetHawks get another pitching performance like they got from Javier Gutierrez, then they have a shot.
Gutierrez (1-0) kept the Quakes off-balance with three shutout innings before giving up three runs in the fourth. It wasn't a backbreaking lapse for Gutierrez, because the JetHawks had already taken a 7-0 lead.
In five innings, Gutierrez gave up five hits, struck out four and only walked one. He outpitched Spencer (2-1), who was coming off a big win over San Bernardino in his last start in which he struck out 13 in eight innings.
Including Clifford's blast, the JetHawks tied their season high with four homers, and all but one came off Spencer.
Chris Dean and Carlos Villalobos finished Spencer off in the sixth with back-to-back homers, with Dean's driving in two runs.
Mathis capped the scoring with a solo homer in the seventh. He and Villalobos both finished with three hits.
"(This morning) a few guys looked a little sluggish, including myself," Mathis said. "The bats spoke for us tonight."