Colin King drove in 5 runs while Landon Jordan tossed a complete game to help Porterville College snap an 11-game losing streak and beat West Hills College Coalinga on the road by a final score of 13-5 on Tuesday in both teams' Central Valley Conference opener.
The three-game conference series continues on Thursday (Feb. 20) at Porterville with Game 3 set for Saturday (Feb. 22) back in Coalinga.
Porterville erupted for a season-high 17 hits and 13 runs led by an impressive 3 for 4 day at the plate by King. His RBI single in the top of the first inning gave PC an early 1-0 lead. Porterville struck again for another run in the second, thanks to a run-scoring single from Andres Garza that drove in Brandon Dodd.
West Hills got on the board in the bottom of the third, rallying for a pair of runs off Landon to tie up the ball game. The Falcons quickly loaded the bases to open the frame and got back-to-back sacrifice flies from Elias Garcia and Agustine Castro to drive in Bennett Hergenroeder and Hunter Jenkins with runs.
The Falcons came back in the fifth to take the lead. Castro smacked an RBI single to left field to drive in Jenkins and give West Hills a 3-2 advantage.
But that lead didn't last long as Porterville went up for good in the sixth. Aaron Hernandez drove in Fernando Montoya with a single and Garza capped the rally with his second RBI of the game that brought in Santiago Sanchez.
Leading 4-3, PC put the game out of reach by scoring five times in the eighth and four final runs in the ninth. King smacked a three-run double and Montoya added a two-run single for the big blows in the eighth. King added an RBI double in the ninth while Gomez and Sanchez also drove in runs.
West Hills took advantage of a two-out error in the eighth to score two final runs but the deficit was too much to overcome.
Jordan went the distance for the Pirates, allowing 5 runs (2 earned) and 10 hits. He struck out four and walked two.
Garza (2 for 5, 2 runs), Montoya (2 for 4), and Sanchez (2 for 5) all drove in two runs each while Isaiah Gomez (3 for 5) had 3 hits and scored 3 runs.
Karter Pate took the loss for West Hills, giving up 4 runs and 10 hits over 7 innings. Garcia (3 for 5, RBI) and Jenkins (3 for 4, 2 runs, RBI) both had 3 hits to lead the Falcons' offense.
Porterville improved to 3-14 overall and 1-0 in the CVC while West Hills dropped to 4-9 and 0-1.