Cuesta Too Slick for Canyons on Wet Field : College baseball: Five innings played under dreary conditions end in a 6-2 Western State Conference defeat for Cougars.

On a day even Ernie Banks might have refused to play, the College of the Canyons and Cuesta baseball teams decided to give it a try.

The game went long enough for Cuesta to come off the soggy Canyons field soaking wet but with a 6-2 Western State Conference inter-divisional victory Thursday. The game was stopped after five innings when the steady drizzle turned into a downpour.

Cuesta (17-9) is in first place in the North Division at 5-2 and Canyons (9-9) is 5-4 in the South, but the game doesn’t count toward the divisional records.

This is the first season in which the WSC has been split into divisions in baseball to reduce travel expenses and to help the conference place more teams in the Southern California regional.

That this game was official was no small feat. Canyons Coach Len Mohney thought the playing conditions had deteriorated to the point of no return much earlier.

“(The umpires) were trying to get five innings in,” Mohney said. “They should have shut it down by the third. It wasn’t like the weather was going to get any better.”

However, the action continued until right-hander Harvey Gamboa stranded three Canyons runners in the fifth to pick up the victory.

Gamboa, a sophomore from Paso Robles High, allowed six hits, struck out six and yielded three walks. He gave up single runs, both earned, in the first and third innings.

Cuesta broke on top, 2-0, in the first when Bobby Brown led off the game against left-hander Tom Manning (1-2) with a single and took second when left fielder R.J. Fenolio bubbled the ball for an error.

Dustin Spencer followed with a bunt single down the third-base line, putting runners at the corners. Kenny McMurry lined a single to left, scoring Brown.

After Gamboa fouled out to first baseman Shane Petrelli, David Beauchamp singled to center to drive in Spencer from second. Manning induced Troy Silva to ground into an inning-ending double play.

Canyons got one of the runs back in the bottom of the inning.

Fenolio led off with a walk and reached third on a hit-and-run single by Ari Jacobs. Ted Kiester knocked in Fenolio with a sharp single to right.

But with cleanup batter John Davis swinging and missing at a full-count pitch, Jacobs was thrown out at third by catcher Bobby Sherwood on an attempted double steal. Gamboa got Tom Nickels on a fly to left to end the inning.

Cuesta broke the game open with three runs in the second.

Ryan Weeks was hit by a pitch and Sherwood, who played at Burroughs High, walked. Jesse Zepeda moved up the runners with a bunt, and Brown knocked them in with a double to the wall in right-center field. He scored on a two-out single by Gamboa.

Cuesta scored its final run in the third when Troy Silva led off with a double and scored on Sherwood’s single.

Chris Pfatenhauer led off the bottom of the inning with a double to left and advanced to third when Beauchamp had trouble picking up the ball in the corner. He scored on a ground out by Fenolio.

Canyons loaded the bases with two out in the fifth on two singles and a walk, but Davis grounded out to first.

Right-hander Anthony Chessani pitched well in relief of Manning, allowing only three hits in three innings of work.