The Pirate baseball team struggled to keep the Hancock off the bases Saturday, dropping their second straight game to the Bulldogs 14-10 in Santa Maria. Ventura (19-19, 9-9) pounded out 17 hits in the game, including three each from TJ Foreman, Fabian De La Barcena and Tommy Gibbons-Matsuyama, but they gave up 16 hits defensively. The loss drops the Pirates two games out of first place with two games remaining in the regular season.
VC opened the game on a positive note with a two-run first inning. De La Barcena had a bases-loaded single to score Foreman, then Shane Gipson had a sacrifice fly to plate Dayton Provost.
Unfortunately the Bulldogs answered wit two runs in the bottom half of the inning to tie the score.
The Pirates came back with four runs in the top of the second. Chris McKee led off with a single, and scored on Gibbons-Matsuyama's triple. Foreman then had an RBI double and Provost reached on an error to score Foreman. Rudy Aguilar reached base on a fielder's choice, De La Barcena singled, then Gipson singled home Aguilar for a 6-2 Pirate lead.
Hancock came right back, however, with a six-run bottom of the second to take an 8-6 lead, then they added two more runs in the third inning.
Ventura scored one run in the top of the fifth when Gibbons-Matsuyama singled in AJ Medrano.
AHC plated another two runs in the sixth inning before Gibbons-Matsuyama bated in Medrano again in the seventh, this time on a fielder's choice with the bases loaded.
The Bulldogs got two more runs in the bottom of the eighth to make it 14-8 before the Pirates closed with a pair of scores in the top of the ninth. Foreman singled home Sam Langler and Aguilar reached on a fielder's choice scoring Gibbons-Matsuyama for the 14-10 final.
Gibbons-Matsuyama was 3-4 at the plate, including a double and a triple, with three RBI and two runs scored. Meanwhile, Foreman was 3-5 with a double, two runs scored and two runs batted in. De La Barcena also had three hits with an RBI and Aguilar had a pair of base hits with one RBI and a run scored.
Ventura hosts Santa Barbara on Tuesday April 24 in the final home game of the regular season before closing out the docket in Santa Barbara on Thursday April 26.