Baseball team loses, 6-5, to Southwestern in first game of Super Regional
May 16, 2008
The Irvine Valley baseball team has some work to do in the Southern California Playoffs Super Regional at Santa Ana College.
Irvine Valley, the No. 4 seed, lost to No. 5 Southwestern, 6-5, in the first game of the Super Regional on Friday afternoon.
The Lasers now have to win four straight games - two Saturday and two Sunday - if they hope to advance to the state championships. They face Bakersfield, which lost to Santa Ana on Friday, in a second chance game on Saturday morning at Golden West College (alternate site) at 10 a.m.
IVC's game with Southwestern on Friday was a back and forth contest.
Southwestern took an early 3-0 lead off IVC starting pitcher Danny Heben.
Heben settled down after that. He ended up going 5 2/3 innings, giving up four runs on five hits and five walks.
The Lasers answered back in the fourth inning. First baseman Connor Rhoads hit a two-run home run to make it a 3-2 game.
And then in the fifth, center fielder Matt Ivanoff tripled in two runs to give the Lasers the lead, 4-3.
Southwestern scored a single run in the op of the sixth to tie it up at 4-4.
In the bottom of the sixth, Irvine Valley went up again. Shortstop Abel Medina turned a chop double over second base into a double. Rhoads sacrificed Medina to third base and then he scored on a ball in the dirt.
An error by IVC second baseman Sean Williams in the seventh led to a Southwestern run and a tie game at 5-5.
And then in the eighth, Southwestern used a walk, stolen base and a single off IVC reliever Robert Purpura to score a run and take a 6-5 advantage.
IVC couldn't answer back in its final two at bats.
The Lasers' record slipped to 31-16 overall.
Purpura took the loss in relief. His record fell to 3-8 on the year after he went 2 2/3 innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on five hits. Purpura had three strikeouts.
Ivanoff led IVC at the plate, going 2 for 4 with two runs scored and two RBI. The Lasers had just six hits in the game.
Irvine Valley has already met Bakersfield twice this year. Both games were losses, but they were two of the team's first three games of the season - at the Bakersfield Tournament.