The Pirate baseball team pulled back to .500 with an 11-9 victory at Cuesta Thursday afternoon, their third straight Western State Conference win. Steele Ledford opened up the game with a home run, and also had a single and triple and two more runs batted in and Fabian De La Barcena was 2-3 with a double and three RBI. Noah Proffitt pitched seven innings, giving up five runs and four hits while striking out three to pick up the win and Sal Delgado recorded the save.
VC (10-10, 3-1) started out with Ledford's homer in the first, and Eric Thrower knocked in Shane Gipson in the second for a 2-0 lead. The Cougars countered with a two-run home run in the bottom of the second to knot the score before the Pirates plated two runs in the third on Dayton Provost's RBI double and a Cuesta error for a 4-2 advantage.
The Cougars halved the Pirate advantage with a run in the fourth frame before Ventura exploded for five runs in the top of the fifth. De La Barcena knocked in two runs with a double and Ledford had a two-out, two-RBI triple in the inning to push VC ahead 9-3.
A double by Provost, a triple by Rudy Aguilar and a sacrifice fly by De La Barcena in the eighth inning increased the Pirate margin to 11-3, and they needed almost all of it as the Cougars scored six runs in the bottom of the eighth to close to within 11-9. Delgado came in to close the door in the ninth and the Pirates came home with the victory.
Ventura will host Moorpark on Friday March 16 in a make up of the rained out game on March 13. With more precipitation in the forecast, the Pirates and Raiders will play at 12:00 noon at Pirate Park in an effort to beat the weather. VC then hosts Cuesta on Saturday March 17 at 2:00 pm.