COLLEGE ROUNDUP : Canyons Rips Ventura in 20-13 Victory

College of the Canyons banged out 18 hits and scored 20 runs Saturday to roll to a 20-13 Western State Conference baseball victory over host Ventura.

“It was just a good old-fashioned slugfest,” Canyons Coach Len Mohney said.

Saturday’s outburst came on the heels of an 18-8 win over Santa Barbara City College, giving the Cougars 38 runs in their first two conference games.

“We have actually been struggling on offense until this week,” Mohney said. “The offense just started happening and it becomes contagious for the whole team.”

Canyons (10-5 overall) jumped to a 4-0 lead in the first inning on a two-out grand slam by freshman Charlie Fowlks.

Canyons added five more runs in the second and led, 11-5, after three innings. But Ventura (8-5, 0-2), the defending WSC champion, battled back to score five runs in the bottom of the fourth to make the score 11-10.

Canyons scored four more runs--on a run-scoring grounder by Jason Stanley, a run-scoring triple by Billy Horvat and RBI singles by Ron Robart and Josh Bergara--in the sixth inning for a 15-10 lead, then closed its scoring in the seventh as Horvat and Robart keyed a five-hit, five-run inning.

While Ventura had 17 hits of its own, the Pirates could not overcome a wild performance from eight pitchers who combined to give up 13 walks.