COLLEGE ROUNDUP : Ventura’s Baseball Team Posts 8th Victory in a Row

Reliever Manuel Herrera pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the eighth inning as unbeaten Ventura College hung on to defeat Santa Monica City, 8-7, in a Riverside tournament baseball game Thursday at UC Riverside.

Ventura (8-0) can tie its school record for consecutive wins at the start of a season (set in 1989) by defeating the state’s top-ranked team, Riverside City, today at 2 p.m.

Dan Madsen was four for five to lead Ventura’s offense.

In other baseball games:

Pierce 11, Mission 10--Pat Houston’s two home runs and four runs batted in helped the Brahmas overcome Mission (3-4) in a nonconference game at Pierce (5-2).

Houston’s three-run home run sparked an eight-run seventh to tie the score, 8-8.

Mission went ahead, 9-8, in the eighth inning, and 10-9 in the ninth, but Erik Martinez’s two-run single in the bottom of the ninth gave Pierce the victory.

Fresno City 2, Canyons 1--Fresno City (6-3) scored the winning run on Brent Fontes’ two-out single in the eighth to beat the Cougars (0-5-1) in a first-round game of the Casey Stengel tournament at Canyons.

L.A. City 6, Oxnard 3--Oxnard wasted a strong relief effort by Juan Hernandez, who allowed no earned runs, struck out five and gave up only four hits in 6 1/3 innings in the nonconference game at L.A. City.

Glendale 8, Antelope Valley 7--John McCoy hit his second game-winning home run of the season, a two-run blast with one out in the bottom of the eighth, to give host Glendale (5-3) the nonconference win. Mike Regan was two for four and Rock DeTolv (1-0) struck out four in three innings of relief for Glendale, which improved to 5-3.

SOFTBALL

Arizona tournament--Cal State Northridge downed Minnesota, then lost to Cal State Fullerton in pool play at the Arizona tournament in Tucson.

A three-run fourth gave the Matadors a 4-0 lead and an eventual 5-3 victory over Minnesota (2-3). In the second game, Yvette Hernandez scored on Heather Lindstrom’s eighth-inning wild pitch to give the No. 7-ranked Titans a 3-2 tie-breaker victory. Antelope Valley 9, Pierce 1--Angie LePage (4-0) threw a four-hitter to lead Antelope Valley in a nonconference game at Pierce. LePage struck out eight.