Canyons Beats Oxnard, 7-3, to Retain Share of Second Place : College baseball: Cougars overcome five errors and 2-0 first-inning deficit.

The first five batters reached base against College of the Canyons starter Mike Teich, but Cougar Coach Len Mohney wasn’t worried about falling behind by two runs in Thursday’s Western State Conference baseball game against host Oxnard.

“We’ve been doing this all year,” Mohney said. “We’ve got something like 23 freshmen on the roster and at times it shows. But I thought we were in pretty good shape after making all kinds of mistakes in the first and only trailing by two.

“I figured the rest of the game would be easy after that.”

Mohney figured correctly.

Canyons defeated Oxnard, 7-3, to stay a half-game behind first-place Moorpark (6-1) in the WSC standings, and set up a second-place showdown Saturday afternoon with Cuesta, which remained tied with the Cougars at 5-1 after defeating Bakersfield, 12-5.

Canyons committed five errors--two in the first, two in the fourth, and one in the eighth--but Teich and Jason Farrell combined on a five-hitter as Cougars improved their overall record to 13-6.

Teich, who forced a runner at home and struck out two to end the first, allowed four hits, and three runs (one earned) in eight innings. He also struck out four, walked three and hit one batter.

And the Cougar offense, which stranded at least one runner in each of the first eight innings, scored three insurance runs on Steve Kovacic’s home run in the ninth.

After giving up two runs on one hit in the first, Teich retired the side in the second and third and would have done the same in the fourth if not for errors by shortstop Charlie Fowlks and second baseman Kovacic.

Trailing, 2-1, after three innings, the Cougars scored twice in the fourth to take a lead they would never relinquish.

Kovacic (two for four, three runs batted in and three runs scored) walked with one out, went to third on Jon Beauchemin’s bloop single to right field and scored on Mike Stephenson’s sacrifice fly.

Billy Horvat drove in Stephenson with a double off the left-field fence.

“Once we got out of the first, I figured Mike would be OK,” Mohney said.

With Teich limiting the Condors (9-11, 2-4) to a double and single in the fifth, sixth and seventh, Canyons extended its lead to 4-2 with a run in the eighth, then reverted to its defensive problems in the bottom half of the inning.

Oxnard’s Pat Avila reached first on third baseman Beauchemin’s error to start the inning, went to second on a passed ball, took third on a sacrifice fly by Tim Johnson, and scored one out later on Al Anaya’s single.

Teich walked Juan Benavidez, but Manny Mejia flied out to end the rally.

Canyons scored three runs in the ninth to take some pressure off its pitching staff.

Fowlks and Gary Morgan led off with consecutive singles, and, after Chris Vasquez flew out and Junior Trujillo forced Morgan at second, Kovacic hit his three-run shot that bounced off the top of the left-field fence.

“We finally executed in the ninth,” Mohney said. “You win baseball games by playing defense and hitting in the late innings. . . . I know that’s an overused cliche, but it’s true.”

Morgan and Beauchemin each had two hits for Canyons.

John Brookman (6-2) took the loss.