The Irvine Valley baseball team finished its best week of the season with a dominant relief effort on the mound from freshman right-hander Dallas Carpenter.
Carpenter pitched five shutout innings as the Lasers held on to beat Fullerton, 7-5, in the second game of a doubleheader on Friday afternoon at the OC Great Park Stadium.
Irvine Valley improved its record to 3-8-1 overall and 3-6 in the Orange Empire Conference.
Fullerton won the first game, 13-5, after scoring nine runs in the first two innings. The game was scheduled for seven innings, but only went five due to time contraints.
The Lasers bounced back in the second game, however.
They jumped out to a big 7-0 lead after two innings.
IVC put two runs on the board in the first inning when freshman outfielder Bradley Wilkison scored on a wild pitch and freshman shortstop Shane Kary knocked in a run with a single.
And Irvine Valley came back with five runs in the bottom of the second. Freshman third baseman Ethan Johannes had an RBI double, sophomore left fielder Dante Faicchio had an RBI single, freshman second baseman Eric Burckle chipped in a two-run double and Kary had another RBI single to make it 7-0.
But Fullerton fought back, adding two runs in the top of the third inning, a single run in the fourth and two more runs in the top of the fifth inning to make the score, 7-5.
That is when IVC turned to Carpenter. And he was dominant from the start of the fifth inning until the final out.
He gave up just four hits and no walks. Carpenter hit two batters, but finished with six strikeouts to earn his first victory of the season.
In the top of the ninth, he got two straight groundouts and then struck out pinch-hitter Haku Dudoit to end things.
At the plate for Irvine Valley, Faicchio continued his tear, going 3 for 4 with a double, two runs scored and one RBI. He lifted his batting average to .455.
Kary also had three hits, going 3 for 3 with a walk and two RBI.
For Fullerton, Jacob McClure was 3 for 5, Elias Rios and Brock Dembo each had two hits and Jacob Sharp had a hit and two RBI.
Mikey DeHaro (0-3) took the loss for the Hornets, going 1.2 innings and allowing seven runs (six earned).
Irvine Valley plays again next Tuesday, starting a four-game OEC series with Saddleback at the OC Great Park Field 8 at 2 p.m.
