Valley Overcomes 7-0 Deficit to Win

The Valley College baseball team warmed up for Earth Day by trashing Moorpark, 14-8, Saturday at Valley College--a victory that recycled Monarch hopes for success in the Western State Conference playoffs.

Behind clutch hitting from the middle of its lineup and solid pitching from reliever Danny Carroll, Valley overcame a 7-0 deficit and improved to 15-18-2 overall, 9-8 in WSC play.

The Monarchs have three games left before starting play in the WSC’s tournament, which will determine the conference’s second representative for the Southern California regional of the state playoffs. The WSC champion receives an automatic berth in the regional.

Moorpark, which has two games left, is 20-12, 12-5 in the WSC.

“It wasn’t pretty on either side,” Valley Coach Chris Johnson said of a game that featured five errors by each team. “We hung in there somehow. I don’t know how it worked, but it worked.”

Moorpark appeared to be in control when the Raiders provided left-hander Willie Leighton with a seven-run cushion, scoring twice in the first inning and adding five runs in the second.

But Carroll, a side-arming sophomore right-hander, came on in favor of reliever Colin Hines with one out in the third inning and limited Moorpark to just one run and one hit the rest of the way.

“I was just throwing my slider and fastball,” said Carroll, who transferred to Valley this season from College of the Canyons. “This was easily my best performance of the season.”

Several Valley batters also had outstanding days.

John Stephens had three hits, including a three-run double that keyed Valley’s four-run sixth and a run-scoring single during the Monarchs’ seven-run seventh.

“We just couldn’t get them out in that inning,” Moorpark Coach Ken Wagner said of the seventh, in which Valley tagged Rob Teasdale for five consecutive hits, including a two-run double by Gene Demyon.

The key offensive performers for the Monarchs, however, were E. J. Pape, Vladimir Pajcin and Mark Cavarretta, the third, fourth and fifth batters in Valley’s lineup.

In each of the three innings that the Monarchs scored, the trio provided the spark--reaching base with consecutive walks, hits, on errors, or being hit by a pitch.

Pape had two hits and two walks; Pajcin had two hits, a walk and reached on an error; Cavarretta singled, reached on an error and twice was hit by a pitch. Each player scored three runs.