Orange Coast College

Baseball: Pirates stunned by Golden West

Thursday, April 23, 2009

COSTA MESA -- The Orange Coast College baseball team fell behind early and couldn't climb all the way back during an 8-6 Orange Empire Conference loss to Golden West College on Thursday at Wendell Pickens Field.

The loss, OCC's second in three games, leaves the Pirates at 27-11 overall, 15-5 in the OEC. With Santa Ana's win over Saddleback and Cypress' loss to Fullerton, Coast now holds a one-game lead over the Dons (29-10, 14-6) for the conference's top spot with four games remaining. Cypress (25-13, 13-7) is now in third place, two games behind Coast, while Saddleback (24-16, 12-8) remains in fourth place, three games back.

Golden West (12-24-2, 4-16) jumped out to a 6-0 lead on the Pirates, thanks in large part to a five-run third inning that knocked out OCC starter Calvin Drummond (8-4).

Rustlers' righty Nick Torres (2-3), who entered the game with a 8.64 ERA, held OCC to just one run on two hits through six innings before running into trouble in the seventh.

In that seventh, OCC opened things with back-to-back-to-back doubles by Ricky Stokes, Ryan Dunn and D.J. Arellano to cut the deficit to 8-3. Two batters later, Mykal Stokes ripped an RBI triple to center, scoring Arellano and Brett Wallach came through with an RBI single to score Stokes to make it 8-5.

In the ninth, Scott Hong opened the frame with a solo home run to left, his first of the season. Mykal Stokes followed with a single, giving OCC a chance to tie things up with the heart of the order coming up.

But three straight fly outs ended the threat for the Pirates, a fitting conclusion considering that 17 of their outs were recorded by way of fly balls.

OCC and the Rustlers will play again on Saturday at GWC, beginning at 2 p.m. before going at it again in the opening game of the OEC Mini-Tournament on Tuesday, at Orange Coast, beginning at 2 p.m.