Pirates close 2018 season with losses to Merced

The 2018 Porterville College baseball season ended in a disappointing way on Friday. The Pirates suffered an 8-1 loss at Merced College just one day after an 18-6 defeat to the Blue Devils in Porterville on Thursday to wrap up a three-game Central Valley Conference series.

Porterville closed the season with a 6-34 overall record and finished in seventh place out of eight teams in the final CVC standings at 5-16.

Merced 8, Porterville 1
Jose Narvaiz went 3-for-4 with a RBI and double to lead PC in Friday's season-finale. He  doubled in the third inning to drive in Alex Sarmienta for Porterville's lone run.

Merced blew the game open with five runs in the sixth inning. Matt Cox took the loss in the start for PC after allowing three runs and five hits over 4 ⅔ innings. Fritz Bowers pitched well in relief. He closed out the game with 2 ⅔ scoreless innings and gave up just two hits.

Merced 18, Porterville 6
Alex Sarmienta smacked a solo home run while Fritz Bowers went 2-for-4 with 2 RBI for the Pirates in a tough loss to Merced in their final home game of the season on Thursday.

Sarmienta led off the bottom of the first with his blast before Eric Loredo with a RBI single to drive in Andres Garza. A Merced error in the third allowed another run in and Garza's RBI double brought home Jose Narvaiz in the fourth to put PC up 4-0

But Merced came back to tie it up in the sixth and went ahead with four more runs in the seventh.

Leonardo Gomez pitched well in the start for PC. He allowed just one run and four hits over 4 ⅓ innings.