Baseball: Pirates tag Lasers

COSTA MESA - The Orange Coast College baseball team picked up where

it left off.

Following Friday’s 19-5 win over Mt. San Jacinto, the Pirates combined

strong pitching and a productive offense to hammer Irvine Valley, 13-1,

at the Matt O’Brien Memorial Tournament Saturday morning in the first

game of a two-game day.

Freshman pitcher Brant Erickson pitched eight strong innings for the

win. The 6-foot-1 right-hander scattered seven hits and struck out four,

while allowing only one run for OCC (2-0).

The Pirates’ offensive production came from the top of their lineup.

Freshmen Chris Sinner, Jake Garcia, Scott Beerer (Newport Harbor High)

and Ryan Marcos, Nos. 1-4 in the OCC lineup, combined to go 8 for 18 with

five runs scored and 10 RBIs. Marcos topped the foursome with two doubles

and four RBIs.

Not to be outdone by the rookies, sophomores Josh McCanne and Brian

Murphy each had two hits for OCC.

The Lasers were led offensively by Bobby Pearce, who went 2 for 2 with

two doubles and an RBI.

It was nearly a UC Irvine baseball reunion between the Lasers and

Pirates.

OCC Coach John Altobelli was an assistant coach for the Anteaters for

six seasons and coached current Lasers’ Coach Stacy Parker at UCI. The

two also worked together at OCC for three seasons.

Current OCC assistant Coach Tim McDonnell played for UCI from 1990-91

and Lasers’ assistant Don Nicholson played for the Anteaters in the mid

1980s.

Former Anteaters’ skipper Mike Gerakos was in attendance for the first

meeting between his former assistant and former player. Did he feel

proud?

“I feel old,” he said with a laugh.

In Game 2, the Pirates defeated Moorpark, 8-6, in 10 innings, to

improve to 3-0.

After giving up five unearned runs in the first two innings, Orange

Coast took the win with a pair of unearned runs with two ouit in the 10th

inning. OCC forced extra innings with a one-out sacrifice fly by Ryan

Marcos in the ninth inning.

Moorpark fell to 0-3.

MATT O’BRIEN MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

Game 1

Orange Coast 13, Irvine Valley 1

Irvine Valley 010 000 000 - 1 7 2

Orange Coast 200 420 41x - 13 15 0

Benter, Faxon (4), Sanchez (7), Taylor (8) and Whitson; Erickson,

Elliston (9) and Murphy. W - Erickson, 1-0. L - Benter, 0-1. 2B -

Restrepo (IVC), Pearce (IVC) 2, Beerer (OCC), Marcos (OCC) 2.

Game 2

Orange Coast 8, Moorpark 6

Orange Coast 210 000 201 2 - 8 14 5 Moorpark 320 100 000 0 - 6 6 2

Foxman, Erickson (4), Tucker (5), Hedgpeth (8) and Cotton, Shuck and

Murphy; Edrosolan, Webb (5), Vermette (7), Kirby (8), Palmer (10) and

Hillman, Webb. W - Hedgpeth, 1-0. L - Kirby, 0-1. 2B - R. Marcos (OCC),

J. Smith (M),