Trailing by a run with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning, freshman Kuea Angilau delivered the walk-off winner, smashing a clutch two-run home run to give the Porterville College Pirates an amazing 4-3 win over visiting West Hills College Coalinga in both teams' regular-season finale on Thursday in Porterville.
The Pirates ended the Central Valley Conference schedule at 12-9 and finished in fourth place in the final CVC standings. With a 24-15 overall record and the 14th best RPI in Northern California, Porterville should earn a spot in the upcoming CCCAA regional playoffs. Postseason matchups will be announced next week.
On Thursday, PC got behind early after allowing three quick runs in the top of the first inning to the spoiler-minded Falcons.
But the Pirates got a run back in the bottom of the first and scored again in the fifth to cut the West Hills Coalinga lead to one run.
And in the seventh, Raquel Gonzalez kept PC's hopes alive by drawing a walk from Falcon pitcher Stephanie Cervantes. With two outs, West Hills decided to pitch Angilau who was hitless in four previous at bats. It was a bad decision as Angilau made them pay for it by depositing her 13th home run of the season deep over the fence for the game-winner.
Ashley Eyraud (10-7) went the distance for her 10th victory of the season for the Pirates. After the rough three-run, first-inning, she kept West Hills off the board for the remainder of the contest. Eyraud allowed seven hits and struck out three.
Shantae Gutierrez had two hits for the Pirates, going 2-for-4 while Annissa Gomez and Alexis LaFarga hit sacrifice flies to drive in runs for PC.
Cervantes took the loss for West Hills Coalinga to fall to 3-15. She allowed three earned runs and eight hits over 6 2/3 innings. The Falcons closed out the season with a 6-23 overall record and finished tied for sixth place in the CVC at 5-16.