IRVINE, Calif. – The Ventura County Pirates stunned the Riptide on Thursday night by defeating OC on their home field by a final score of 3-2.
Errors and missed opportunities headlined the night for the Riptide, as the team seemed to trip over itself in all facets of the game. With three errors and ten runners left on base, the Riptide allowed the Pirates to hang around and ultimately grab the lead late to pull off the shocking victory.
OC’s pitching staff put together a solid outing, only allowing a total of one earned run the entire game. Riptide starter Luis Becerra (Cal Baptist University) navigated through some early threats from Ventura County and managed to toss three scoreless innings.
On the other hand, the OC offense struggled to find their footing early but managed to score the first run of the game with a sacrifice fly from infielder Rocco Gump (Northwestern State University) to bring home outfielder Michael Diaz (Grand Canyon University).
The Pirates struck back in the fourth inning by responding with a sacrifice fly of their own from Rider Gordon to even the score at 1-1.
The Riptide rallied again in the fifth and grabbed the lead back with another run on a fielder’s choice from Gump to bring in Patrick Hackworth (University of California San Diego) to go ahead 2-1.
However, after the fifth the Riptide bats went dead silent, as the lineup managed just two base runners and struck out six times in the last four innings.
Meanwhile, Ventura County found a spark in the seventh inning and managed to take advantage of a Riptide error and bring home the tying run.
In the ninth, the Pirates once again capitalized on a Riptide mistake, with an infield error allowing the go-ahead run to score and make the tally 3-2 in favor of Ventura County.
Even with the top of the lineup due up in the bottom half of the ninth, the Riptide still struggled to find success at the plate with OC going down in order to end the game.
The flurry of mistakes throughout the night troubled Riptide manager Connor Spencer and left him disappointed in his team’s performance after the surprising loss.
“We continue to give away ball games,” Spencer said. “We just cannot go through a ballgame without making multiple mistakes and giving up runs to the other team, so I was extremely frustrated.”
With the CCL playoffs approaching in the next few weeks, the Riptide must pick up the pieces quickly and learn from their mistakes in the loss. Spencer reiterated that it starts with preparation before games and thinks his team can improve in that area.
“I’m preaching to these guys that they have to be professionals,” Spencer said. “With that comes a conscious decision to show up when we do things like early work and taking the work that we do before the ball game seriously. I feel like as the summer has gone on we’ve become a little lackluster with our professionalism, so if we’re going to clean something up that’s where it has to start.”
The Riptide will have little time to lick their wounds, as they head up to Compton to square off against the Academy Barons on Friday at 6:05 p.m.
