Orange Coast College

Baseball: Pirates fall to Cypress in Super Regional opener

Friday, May 16, 2008

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- For the past few games, the Orange Coast College baseball team has been jumping out to big, early leads, but on Friday, it was the Cypress Chargers who threw the first uppercut as they pulled out a 10-5 win in Game 1 of the Southern California Super Regionals, held at Cuesta College.

The loss pushes the Pirates (32-14-1) into "must-win" mode the rest of the tournament if there is any hope for a State Final Four trip. They return to action on Saturday at 10 a.m. at Sinsheimer Park against the loser of the afternoon matchup between Cuesta and Riverside.

The Chargers (30-17) opened things with a run in the first inning, then pulled ahead for good with a five-run second inning, knocking out starter Ryan Rosenhahn (0-2).

OCC quickly responded in the bottom of the third with a three-run frame, sparked by RBI singles by Chris Fung and Wes Kartch and an RBI grounder by Drew Hillman.

Pirates' righty Chris Licon pitched effectively in long relief, keeping this team in the ballgame through the middle innings. He escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the top of the fourth inning with back-to-back strikeouts, keeping the score 6-3.

In the bottom of the fourth, Brett Wallach led off with a double to right and scored two batters later on an RBI double to right by Ryan Sheeks, cutting the deficit to 6-4.

But that would be as close as OCC would get the rest of the afternoon as Cypress tacked on single runs in the fifth and sixth innings, followed by a pair of runs in the seventh, pounding out 15 hits and eight doubles along the way.

Kartch went 2-for-5 with an RBI and Brett Wallach went 2-for-4 with a run scored. Austin Elliott delivered a pinch-hit home run to right in the bottom of the ninth for OCC's final run of the day.