Irvine Valley's baseball saw its chances to make the postseason take a hit on Thursday afternoon with a 10-6 Orange Empire Conference loss at Santa Ana.
Irvine Valley fell behind, 3-0, after the first inning, but rallied to take a 4-3 advantage in the top of the fifth inning.
The Lasers scored a run in the top of the third on a sacrifice fly by freshman second baseman David Rojas. Sophomore first baseman Cooper Moore then hit a solo home run in the top of the fourth and freshman Ben McConnell drove in a run with an infield single in the top of the fifth. The Lasers also picked up a run on a Santa Ana error in the fifth.
But Santa Ana took the lead for good at 7-4 with four runs in the bottom of the sixth and added a run in the seventh to go up, 8-4.
Irvine Valley scored a run on a groundout by Rojas in the top of the eighth and freshman third baseman Dustin Angus hit a sacrifice fly in the top of the ninth to cap IVC's scoring on the day.
Moore went 2 for 4 with two runs scored and one RBI, McConnell went 2 for 6 with one RBI and sophomore shortstop Colin Conroy was 1 for 2 with four walks in the game for the Lasers.
Irvine Valley's record slipped to 18-21 overall and 8-12 in conference. Santa Ana went to 21-18 overall and 9-11 in conference.
The two teams wrap up the three-game series on Friday at Irvine Valley.