Irvine Valley's baseball team moved over the .500 mark for the first time this year with a dominant performance on Thursday afternoon at home.
The Lasers were good in all facets of the game, getting another strong effort on the mound from sophomore Tyler Venturelli and coming through with some clutch hits, especially late, en route to a 8-0 win over West LA.
Irvine Valley improved its record to 4-3 on the year. West LA slipped to 0-5 on the season.
Venturelli moved to 2-0 overall after pitching seven shutout innings. He gave up just three hits and struck out six batters.
Sophomore John Stevens came on in relief and threw two scoreless innings. He had three strikeouts.
Irvine Valley scored a run in the bottom of the first inning to take the lead.
Sophomore shortstop Tyler Odekirk led off with a walk. He later came around to score on a single up the middle by sophomore right fielder Cole Joy.
The score stayed 1-0 until the bottom of the seventh inning. IVC pushed across two runs on sacrifice flies by freshman third baseman Ryan Rafferty and sophomore designated hitter Robbie Espinosa to take a 3-0 lead.
And then in the bottom of the eighth inning, the Lasers blew the game open.
IVC batted around and scored five runs on five hits.
Freshman pinch-hitter Nash Hathaway capped the scoring in the inning with a RBI double to right field.
Irvine Valley finished with 15 hits on the afternoon.
Freshman left fielder Cain Allen went 3 for 4 with a triple and a double, Odekirk was 2 for 4 with a walk, three runs scored, a stolen base and one RBI, Rafferty went 2 for 4 with a double and two RBI and Joy was 2 for 5 with one RBI.
Irvine Valley plays again on Friday. The game was slated to be at El Camino-Compton, but the Lasers will host instead. Game time is scheduled for 1 p.m.
