Orange Coast College

Baseball: Pitching continues to shine with 7-1 win over GWC

Monday, March 16, 2009

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- After starting 0-2 in the Orange Empire Conference, the Orange Coast College baseball team notched its fifth straight conference win with a 7-1 victory over Golden West on Thursday at GWC.

The win puts the Pirates (14-7 overall) 5-2 after the first round of OEC play. They will return to action on Tuesday at home against Cypress, beginning at 2 p.m.

Against the Rustlers (7-13-2, 0-6), sophomore righty Calvin Drummond held GWC to just one earned run over seven strong innings. Despite five walks, he held the Rustlers to just two hits while striking out six. Brett Wallach threw two scoreless innings of relief, striking out four.

Just how good has the OCC pitching staff been? Over the past 36 2/3 innings, the Coast hurlers have allowed a total of two earned runs (0.45 ERA) with 35 strikeouts.

Meanwhile, on the offensive end, it was another steady display for the Pirates as they racked up 13 hits and used a pair of three-run innings to blow the game open.

In the second, Ryan Dunn got the Pirates on the scoreboard first with an RBI single. A Rustlers' error scored two more OCC runners to make it 3-0.

After GWC notched its lone run in the fifth, OCC answered with three runs in the top of the sixth, a two run single by Stokes was followed with an RBI single by Drew Hillman to make it 7-1.

That was more than enough for Coast as Drummond and Wallach kept the Rustlers at bay the rest of the way.