Moorpark College (8-16, 4-7 WSC North) came out against Santa Barbara (13-12, 7-4) ready to win, but SB had different things in mind, stealing the win 5-2 in a hard fought game.
Colby Morse (2-0) got the start for SB, dueling on the other end was Tyler Karp (1-4) for MC. But it was a walk off double from Robert Vickers with two runners on, in the top-of-the-fifth, brining MC’s deficit to 3-0.
Both teams fought an uphill battle from there on as each starting pitcher calmed down and gained composure.
Karp pitched eight innings, allowing seven hits, four earned runs and striking out 10.
But it wasn’t until the seventh and eight innings when things began to break down for the second year pitcher.
SB’s Andrew smith singled for an RBI in the seventh and with a runner on second and Ignacio Elias to bat all it took was a single to left field and an error from Robert Toczynski to give SB a 5-0 lead.
“The errors did it, our pitching was good, but the errors did it mostly,” said Nathan McMullen, pitcher for MC. “The hits didn’t come till later and in the game and by that time, that was it, there was nothing we could do.”
The problem of leaving men on arose early on for MC the hits were there but not the ability to bring in the runs.
Colby Morse pitched 7.2 innings with only four strikeouts, allowing nine hits, and two earned runs. The staggering pitching proved fatal to MC.
Ryan Thompson, Head coach for SB, recognized their advantage; encouraging the dugout to find the best pitches and keep MC off-balance with good pitching and smothering defense.
“The triple in the second was a big push putting us up 3-0, we pitched consistently and Colby keep them off balance,” said Thompson. “He worked in, out and up and that’s probably the biggest part. They out hit us, but our hits were more about timing. “
Mario Porto, Head coach for MC, reiterated the point of not taking advantage of the chances you have when men are on base and how a team can be dependant on their pitching but have to close out offensively.
“We didn’t hit when we had guys on and that’s the key,” said Porto. “We had chances. Our guys pitched they way we needed him to; it was one of those where we didn’t do what we needed to do and its been that ways the last week.”
MC has dropped their last four in a row, including Saturday’s game. One of the losses came from cross-county rival Ventura College and with this loss they have fallen to 4-7 in WSC North play and second to last in the WSC North standings, only above Ventura College.
Santa Barbara sits two games behind Cuesta College for top spot in the WSC North and Porto hopes for better results in upcoming games.
“We’ll be out here Monday getting ready for the next four, we got four games next week and we’ll see if we’re ready for that.” Porto stated.
