Provost powers Pirates over Vaqueros, 9-7

Dayton Provost had a career day on Tuesday, going 5-5 with a triple, a homer and six RBIs as Ventura downed SBCC 9-7 in a key WSC North baseball game at Pirate Park.

The Pirates (20-19, 10-9) moved into a three-way tie for second in the WSC North with the Vaqueros (19-20, 10-9) and Hancock. Moorpark blanked Oxnard 7-0 to clinch the conference championship. The Raiders (12-7) have a two-game lead with one to play.

Jake Holton paced the Vaqueros with his second three-hit game (3-5) in two days. He had an RBI triple in the sixth and scored on a wild pitch to tie it at 4-4. Holton is second in the WSC North in batting average (.383) and RBIs (38) and third in home runs (6). He leads the state with 10 saves.

Mitch Sancier belted a two-run homer in the fourth and John Jensen singled to open the sixth, pushing his hitting streak to 14 games.

Sancier was 2-5 and Pat Caulfield went 2-3 to stretch his hit streak to 10 games. Sancier has a nine-game hitting streak and he's batting .514 in that span (18-35).

Ventura snapped a 4-4 tie with four runs in the sixth on a three-run triple by Provost and an RBI single by Rudy Aguilar. The Vaqueros got two unearned runs in the seventh and another in the eighth on an RBI single from Caulfield to cut the deficit to one run, 8-7.

Provost hit his first homer of the year in the eighth for an insurance run.

Noah Profitt earned the victory, pitching 6.1 innings and allowing six runs (four earned) on six hits with six strikeouts. Yeager George suffered the loss after giving up four runs on five hits in 1.2 innings of relief.

The Vaqueros are hoping to earn their eighth straight trip to the postseason. They'll host Ventura in the regular-season finale on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. SBCC can finish second and make the playoffs with a victory and a Hancock loss to Cuesta.