Canyons Comes Up With Ninth-Inning Trifecta, Wins 10-9

VALENCIA —  The College of the Canyons baseball team staged a dramatic ninth-inning comeback Tuesday, giving the host Cougars a 10-9 victory over Pierce in a wacky battle for the top spot in the Western State Conference South Division.

Jeff Brown banged a Harry Kenoi fastball to the right-field fence that drove in Brian Shaw with the game-winning run in the ninth that capped a wild game.

Rick Nadeau, who made a costly error in right field in the top of the ninth, led off the bottom half of the inning with a liner that nicked Kenoi on the left shoulder and fell for a single.

Justin Bunch struck out on three pitches but Lou Sanchez grounded to Dan Arnold, a defensive replacement at third base, who threw high to first base and allowed the runners to take second and third.

Three pitches later, Shaw grounded to third and Arnold again threw high to first, allowing two runs to score and Shaw to advance to second.

Brown followed and hit the first pitch from Kenoi (2-2) for the game-winner.

The victory gave the Cougars (23-17, 18-6 in conference play) a one-game lead over Pierce (27-11, 17-7) in the division with two games left to play.

“That’s about as fun as it can get,” Canyons Coach Len Mohney said. “It was everything it was built up to be. I wish the Super Bowl would live up to its hype the way this game did.”

Arnold took over at third in the bottom of the ninth when third baseman Mike Glendenning moved to catcher, replacing Dave Supple, who was lifted for a pinch-runner after walking to lead off the top of the ninth.

“What can you say?” Pierce Coach Bob Lofrano said. “We used a pinch-runner, then had to make a defensive replacement and the errors cost us the game. It’s a tough way to lose.”

The Brahmas trailed, 7-6, entering the ninth. They loaded the bases with one out when Carlos Nunez hit a routine fly ball to Nadeau in right.

Nadeau, who said he was getting set to try to throw out the potential tying run at the plate, missed the ball and two runs scored.

Josh Morgan then scored Glendenning with a sacrifice fly for a 9-7 lead.

Lofrano summoned Kenoi, who has 11 saves and a 1.71 earned-run average going into the game, to work the ninth.

“I didn’t like it,” Mohney said of his team’s predicament.

But Nadeau wasn’t worried.

“I didn’t let [the error] get to me,” he said. “I knew we had one more time to bat and I just went up thinking [of hitting the ball] up the middle.”

Brian Baker (4-1) replaced Canyons’ starter Chris Baker in the ninth and gave up three unearned runs on one hit and two intentional walks.

Canyons led for the first time when Gabby Halcovich hit a solo home run with two out in the eighth to break a 6-6 tie.

The Cougars had tied the score, 6-6, with four runs in the fifth on a two-run single by Nadeau and Shaw’s two-run homer.