Orange Coast College

Baseball: OCC's season comes to an end with loss to Riverside

Saturday, May 17, 2008

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- One of the most successful seasons in recent memory came to a disappointing end on Saturday as Orange Coast College fell to Riverside 11-5, eliminating the Pirates from the 2008 Super Regional Playoffs.

"We just couldn't put it together when we needed to," OCC head coach John Altobelli said after the loss. "All year long, we'd get timely pitching, or a ton of offense or solid defense. For some reason, we couldn't get all of that together this weekend, which is disappointing. But it's been a successful season and it's a group that I really enjoyed coaching."

Much like Friday's 10-5 loss to Cypress, the Pirates (32-15-1) found themselves in a deep hole early as Riverside (30-18) jumped out to a 6-1 lead after three innings.

OCC climbed back into the game with a four-run fourth to make it 6-5. In that frame, an RBI single by Ryan Dunn a two-run throwing error by the Tigers and an RBI single by Wes Kartch highlighted the offense for Coast.

But that would be all the offense the Pirates could muster as reliever Sean Urina (3-1) pitched the final 5 2/3 innings to pick up the win, holding the OCC offense to just four hits along the way.

For the second day in a row, the OCC pitchers struggled as Riverside pounded out 17 hits en route to the win. The Tigers had runners on base all morning long and even with 11 runs, they still stranded 13 runners on base.

"It's unfortunate because our pitchers have been very strong and steady all season long," Altobelli said. "I'm not sure if we simply ran out of gas, or we just ran up against two red-hot offenses. I'm guessing that it was a little bit of both."

Kartch, Dunn and Austin Elliott each had two hits for the Pirates.