Valley Plugs Pierce With Its Stopper

Forget about “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.” The motto at Valley College should be, “Throw Steve Trainor, then hope for a hurricane.”

Trainor is 4-0 and Valley is 4-9-1, so it does not take a rocket scientist to see that Trainor lifts his team to a higher level.

On Tuesday, Trainor pitched Valley to a 3-2 victory over visiting Pierce in a Western State Conference opener.

“He’s been absolutely outstanding all year,” Valley Coach Chris Johnson said of Trainor.

Trainor might be a workhorse, but he is a thoroughbred and not a pack mule. He battled tendinitis in his elbow last season and a knee injury during the fall and winter.

“He has a future in this game to say the least, so we’re very careful with him,” Johnson said.

Johnson used Trainor sparingly during the winter and likes to give him four or five days between starts.

Therefore, Valley needs a monsoon to carry the team from one Trainor start to another.

Trainor, throwing his off-speed pitches for strikes, struck out seven, gave up only two walks and scattered 10 hits in his complete game.

His performance barely overshadowed a strong outing by Pierce’s Travis Arsenault (2-2). A sophomore left-hander like Trainor, Arsenault gave up eight hits and struck out three in a complete game.

However, Valley touched Arsenault for a run in the first and never trailed. Rob Kostenbader punched a ground-ball single into left field to drive in James Weese and put Valley ahead, 1-0.

Pierce (7-7) scored in the second when Jim Wolf hit a chopper to third to drive in Pat Huston. Valley answered with a run in the bottom of the second, and Pierce scored in the third to make it 2-2 entering what turned out to be a pivotal fourth.

Pierce loaded the bases with no one out but failed to score. Glenn Nahmias hit into a double play, and Juan Soriano grounded out to end the threat.

“That was a golden opportunity to break the game open,” Pierce co-Coach Bob Lofrano said.

“To come out of there with nothing--they never had to play catch-up, and that’s what we were doing.”

Valley scored the winning run in the bottom of the inning when Joe Ishikawa doubled, took third on a passed ball and came home on Kevin Walsh’s sacrifice fly.

Pierce mounted its last serious threat in the fifth when Carl McFadden and Huston hit back-to-back, two-out singles. Joe Cascione followed with a fly-ball out to center, though, leaving the runners stranded.

“We had opportunities and didn’t do anything with them,” Lofrano said. “That’s a credit to their pitcher; he beat our hitters.”