Harbor Rallies to KO Canyons : Community colleges: After trailing, 4-0, Seahawks turn on the power to win, 9-4, and earn a berth in regional final.

It’s hard to keep a good team down.

The College of the Canyons baseball team learned that lesson Saturday after taking a 4-0 lead in the first inning at Harbor, the top-seeded team in the Southern California Regional playoffs.

Canyons’ lead vanished quickly, however, in a hail of Harbor extra-base hits. The final score: Harbor 9, Canyons 4.

Harbor Coach Tony Bloomfield said his team never doubted it could rally from the early deficit. The Seahawks (34-7) advance to the Southern California Regional final, a three-day tournament, which begins Friday at 10 a.m. at Harbor.

The regional final is the next step for Harbor in defense of its state championship.

“It’s not arrogance, but this team is always confident,” Bloomfield said. “That’s what this team is all about. It’s a matter of who is going to become the hero on a given day.”

Saturday, Bloomfield could have taken his pick of heroes, starting with first baseman David Jund, who hit his eighth and ninth home runs and drove in three runs.

Jund hit a solo home run over the 350-foot sign in left field off Canyons starter Chad Phillips to break a 4-4 tie in the seventh. He added a towering two-run home run to left in the ninth.

Ricardo Gutierrez, Harbor’s second baseman, had a single and a double and lined a two-run home run down the left-field line in the ninth to complete the scoring. Gutierrez, the Southern California Athletic Conference most valuable player, boosted his average to .404.

Seahawk shortstop Mark Lewis drove in three runs with two singles and stole a base. Lewis turned in the defensive play of the game in the eighth when he dove into the hole to snare Scott Roth’s sharp one-hopper and sprung to his feet to retire Roth at first.

The loss, coupled with a 5-1 loss to Harbor on Friday, eliminated Canyons (27-19-1), the No. 16 team in the regional.

“If you don’t win it all, you end on a negative note, but I was proud of the way the team battled,” Canyons Coach Len Mohney said. “They could have just showed up this morning but they gave Harbor a dogfight.”

The Cougars chased Harbor starter Steve Campos in the first inning, scoring four times on a two-run double down the left-field line by Jon Beauchemin and a two-run single by second baseman Pat DeBoer.

Bloomfield said Harbor was off-balance at the start against Phillips, a 6-foot-4 right-hander who retired the first six batters in order.

“He baffled us for a while,” Bloomfield said. “It took us time to adjust, but we kept picking away, waiting for things to happen.”

It started in the third, when Lewis drove in Anthony Griffin and Rodney Garcia with a single. Gutierrez scored later in the inning when Phillips committed a balk.

Lewis struck again in the fifth, tying the score with a line-drive single to center that scored Gutierrez, who had doubled.

Harbor got solid long relief from Scott Taylor (5-1), who pitched 5 1/3 scoreless innings for the decision after replacing Campos with two out in the first.