Baseball: Pirates can't hold late lead, fall 7-6 at MPC

Leading 6-2 heading into the bottom of the seventh inning, Porterville College couldn't close out the win and suffered a 7-6 non-conference loss at Monterey Peninsula College on Friday. The loss dropped Porterville to 3-13 overall while Monterey improved to 5-9. The two squads will wrap up the two-game series on Saturday at 12 p.m.

The Pirates jumped ahead early in Friday's contest, scoring four runs in the top of the second. Christian Sanchez' bases-loaded walk forced in a Dylan Peavy and two batters later, a wild pitch MPC relief pitcher William Curl allowed Dylan Reed to come in to score. Jose Narvaiz followed that with a clutch two-out single to bring in Sanchez and Marcos Alvarez.

Monterey scored for the first time in the bottom of the third before PC got the run back in the top of the fourth. And in the bottom of the fourth, Lennie Rodriguez answered with a solo home run for MPC to cut the Porterville lead to 5-2.

The score would remain 5-2 all the way until the top of the seventh. Reed hit a sacrifice fly for the Pirates to score Moses Garza to give Porterville what would seem to be an insurmountable lead. But MPC scored four runs in the seventh, the big blow a three-run home run by Chris Baetze that tied up the game.

And in the eighth, Monterey took the lead for good, scoring the go-ahead run on a PC wild pitch.

Porterville appeared to be on its way to the victory despite getting just six hits in the contest. Narvaiz' 2 RBI lead the Pirates.

On the mound, Jhared Gonzalez allowed six runs and 10 hits over seven innings in the no decision. Jordan Grader took the loss for the Pirates, allowing an unearned run and a hit in the eighth.