Taylor Valentine was electric striking out eight in 11 innings of work as the Inland Valley Pirates (8-8,6-8) won 1-0 in 12 innings over the Long Beach Legends (25-16,7-4) in game one of the doubleheader at Long Beach City College Tuesday.
The Cal State San Bernardino junior-to-be threw 119 pitches en route to the victory.
A.J. David blasted the game-winning RBI double scoring Anthony Virgen. David finished the game 4-for-5.
The Legends’ Danny Ittner continued his dominance on the mound as well, hurling eight shutout innings, while lowering an already microscopic 0.58 ERA to 0.46.
The newly acquired Max Bethell also provided three scoreless innings of relief for the Legends.
Marcos Martinez recorded the save with a solid 12th inning.
Game two of the doubleheader was suddenly halted after nine innings due to darkness in another tied score, this time at 6-6.
The game will be completed before the doubleheader on July 19th at Cal Poly Pomona, which will be broadcast live on sccbaseball.com.
It seemed as though the Legends had regained their momentum taking a 6-3 lead into the final frame, but a three-run top of the ninth tied the game up minutes after 8 p.m.
The Pirates picked up right where they left off jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first as David, one of the stars from game one, brought in Jorge Ortega and Blake James.
The Legends answered with one in the second when Hugo Rodriguez ripped one of his two RBI singles.
Inland Valley responded, regaining a two-run lead in the fourth on an RBI sacrifice fly by Nathan Virgen scoring David.
Back-and-forth they went. The Legends tacked on one in the bottom of the fourth to cut the deficit to 3-2. They added two more in the fifth to take a 4-3 lead. Chris Schaaf had an RBI sacrifice fly as Danny Haley scored the tying run and Steven Garber was the go-ahead run.
The Legends plated two more in the eighth inning scoring five unanswered runs. Jeff Guzman and Matt Chavez belted one RBI apiece.
The Pirates fought until the bitter end. After loading the bases, James came through with an RBI to close the margin to 6-4. Christian Kelley brought his team within one on an RBI single. Then, Pitcher Cory Davis, came in to pinch hit. He hit a chopper up the middle that could have been a game-ending double play, but the throw to first base was a little off target and Greg Espinosa scored to knot the game up at 6.
Long Beach plays the Montebello Stars on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m., while Inland Valley faces the East L.A. Dodgers on Friday at 5 p.m.