The VC baseball team dropped a 10-9 decision in walk-off fashion Tuesday at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo. The Pirates led 9-7 heading to the bottom of the seventh but were unable to close out the Cougars. Matthew Ramirez had two hits with two runs batted in and a run scored in the game while Jacob Tostado had three RBI on a pair of hits while also scoring once for the Pirates (6-10, 4-3).
The Cougars scored three runs in the bottom of the first, but Ventura answered with four runs in the next half-inning. Daniel Aguilera opened the top of the second with a single before Peter Dufau hit an RBI triple. Tostado followed with a run-scoring single, and moved to second on Tommy Castaneda's single. Henry Borjas walked to load the bases and Ramirez hit a two-RBI single to put VC ahead 4-3.
The Pirate lead was short-lived, however, as Cuesta plated three more scores in the bottom half of the frame.
Tostado singled home Aguilera and Caden Stillwell in the top of the third to tie the game. Then, in the top of the fourth, Grant Rodriguez singles home Borjas and Aguilera hit a sacrifice fly to push Ramirez home for an 8-6 VC advantage.
The Pirates answered a Cuesta score in the bottom of the sixth before Castaneda singled home Dufau in the top of the seventh to reestablish VC's two-run lead.
Cuesta scored single runs in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings to walk off with the 10-9 decision.
Ben Drumheller started the game on the mound for Ventura, pitching four innings and giving up six runs. Hudson Gray, Victor Tostado, Cole Blommer and Austin Kurr all threw an inning in relief.
Game two of the series has been moved from Thursday Mar. 6 to Friday Mar. 7 at 2:00 pm at Pirate Park.