Story and photo by Jesse Muñoz/COC Sports Information Director

College of the Canyons posted an 8-3 victory over visiting Victor Valley College on Friday as three Cougars finished the game with multi-RBI outings.

Canyons (17-5, 9-7) has now won the first two games of the three-game series vs. the Rams (12-20, 3-13) after a 21-3 road win on Tuesday.

The Cougars drew first blood on a Nick Henry RBI double that scored Kyle Soberano for a 1-0 score.

COC starter Ayden Alger got into a bit of a jam in the second when the Rams pushed across an unearned run, and then executed a double steal to bring a second runner home and put the game at 2-1 in favor of VVC.

In the fourth, it was Soberano who came up with a two-run double that plated Nate Duarte and Felix Brandt and gave COC its lead back at 3-2.

Later Brandt and Erne combined for a double steal of their own, with Erne touching home plate for a 4-2 advantage.

It was more Canyons in the sixth with Max Mehlbaum bringing in two more runs. Henry then brought Mehlbaum around on a base hit to center field.

Luke Chung capped the Cougars’ scoring with a single in that seventh that brought home Duarte and put the game at 8-2 for COC.

Henry finished the game 5-for-5 with the two RBIs. Soberano was 1-for-3 with a walk, a run and two RBIs. Duarte was 1-for-2 with three runs and a walk.

Alger (4-5) went five innings to get the win. He walked five and struck out four and was charged with a single earned run.

Matt Serrano tossed three innings of strong relief and recorded two strikeouts before handing the ball to Rane Pfiefer for the final frame. Pfiefer allowed a late Rams run to make it an 8-3 final score for the Cougars.

Here’s the box score.

Canyons and Victor Valley complete the three-game set at 2:30 p.m. Friday in Victorville.

The Cougars will then take a break from conference competition with a road game at West L.A. College on Monday, before playing in a pair of contests at the annual Allan Hancock spring tourney April 17-18. COC is scheduled to face Merced College at 2 p.m. on Wednesday then close out the tournament with a 10:30 a.m. contest on Thursday vs. Cypress.

Canyons will finish the regular season with a three-game series vs. Barstow College April 23-26. COC’s regular season home finale is 2:30 p.m. Thursday, April 25.

The Cougars are third in the Western State Conference, East Division, three games back of first place Glendale (21-11, 12-4) and a game behind second-place Citrus College (14-16-1, 10-6)

Stay up to date on all this season’s action by following the College of the Canyons Athletic department on social media at @COCathletics on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.