Baseball Falls at Santa Barbara

The VC baseball team dropped a 7-4 decision at Santa Barbara on Saturday afternoon. Haiden Letzing had three hits and scored a run to lead the effort for the Pirates (17-18, 7-11) while Jacob Tostado also recorded a hit and scored a run.

The Pirates got off to a good start with a pair of unearned runs in the first inning. David King and Tostado drew back-to-back walks to open the game and Peter Dufau walked with one out to load the bases. With two outs, King scored on a passed ball and Tostado scored on a wild pitch as Bryce Elias also walked. But VC could not get a clutch hit to extend the inning, however, and led 2-0 headed to the bottom half of the frame.

SBCC had an answer in the bottom of the first, scoring three runs to take a 3-2 lead.

Ventura tied the game with a run in the fourth inning. Letzing led off with a single and moved to second on Elias' base on balls. Both runners moved ahead 90 feet on a failed pick-off move before Evan DeVally hit a sacrifice fly to score Letzing.

Unfortunately, the Vaqueros answered with another run in the bottom half of the frame to maintain a 4-3 advantage. They also scored one in the fifth and two in the sixth to take control of the game.

In the eighth, Dylan Jackson led off with a walk and Letzing hit a one-out single. a wild pitch moved the runners forward, then Elias hit a sacrifice fly to left field to score Jackson. 

The Pirates could not muster any more offense, however, and fell by the 7-4 margin.

VC next travels to Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria on Thursday April 25.