Moorpark Wins, 10-9, in Wild One at Ventura

After three one-run losses in Western State Conference play, the Moorpark College baseball team reversed a disturbing trend Thursday and put someone else on the wrong end of a one-run contest.

In a wild game that featured 19 runs and 31 hits, Moorpark escaped with a 10-9 victory over Ventura College at Ventura. According to Moorpark right fielder Jon Egertson, the victory was a long time coming.

“Lately we’ve been losing by one run,” Egertson said. “We never seem to pull it out. We had two really hard practices this week. We’ve been running our butts off all week.”

Ventura got some exercise, compliments of Egertson, who was 5 for 6 with two doubles, three singles and one run batted in. Moorpark (4-3 in conference and 9-9 overall) collected 15 hits. Ventura (4-2, 10-6 overall) had 16 hits.

Ventura Coach Gary Anglin was worried about the effect of Thursday’s loss on his team.

“My major concern is to leave this game here. If we don’t, we’ll get blown out of our next game,” he said.

It appeared to be just that, a blowout, when the Raiders scored six runs and sent 12 batters to the plate in the fourth inning to wipe out a 5-3 Ventura lead.

Jeff Hoover and Randy Stader started the inning with singles, and Egertson doubled home Hoover. Jim Bodack and Joey Shoen followed with run-scoring singles, and Tom Sullivan added a long single to right field that scored Shoen and Bodack.

Hoover completed the rally with his second single of the inning, scoring Bob Ayrault from third base. Ayrault had reached first on a fielder’s choice and advanced on two singles.

Ventura didn’t help its cause with five errors in the game.

MOORPARK--Ayrault, Gleason (5), Nelson (6), and Stader, Conahey (6).

VENTURA--Grove, Campbell (2), Shepherd (4), Harrison (6) Tougas (8) and Bennett.

WP--Gleason (2-4); LP--Shepherd (0-1).