COLLEGES:

Already grieving the Friday morning death of redshirt sophomore catcher Jourdan Watanabe, the Orange Coast College baseball program has had some anxious moments in recent days concerning the health of freshman infielder Trevor McDonald.

McDonald, a four-year varsity performer at Estancia High who earned first-team All-Orange Coast League honors and was a member of the Newport-Mesa Dream Team as a senior last spring, has been fighting an aggressive infection. The infection, generated by what everyone thought was a mild ankle spike wound in the Pirates’ Feb. 24 game at Chaffey, has required at least two surgeries and put him in the Intensive Care Unit for the weekend at Hoag Hospital, OCC Coach John Altobelli said.

McDonald did not even mention the initial injury, which occurred on a pickoff play at third base, where he was playing at the time.

But Altobelli said McDonald went home early from practice Wednesday with what he thought was the flu. Still not feeling well, he missed the Orange Empire Conference opener Thursday at Cypress. When McDonald went to the doctor, Thursday, the infection was discovered and he underwent emergency surgery that night, as it was feared the bacteria had begun attacking muscle tissue.

Altobelli said the bacteria spread to McDonald’s lungs and caused some difficulty with his breathing, prompting his weekend in the ICU.

But Altobelli said McDonald left the ICU Monday.

McDonald, who had one hit in eight at-bats and had played in five games, starting once, this season, is out for the season, Altobelli said. And it is still not known whether he will be able to resume his career.

“Knowing Trevor, he’s going to be back out on the field next year,” Altobelli said.

 An emotional game Saturday at OCC, which featured a pregame moment of silence for Watanabe, was followed by a candlelight vigil later that evening in Irvine.

The crowd at the vigil was estimated at more than 500.

A memorial service for Watanabe has been scheduled Sunday at 3 p.m. at the OCC baseball diamond. Altobelli said the public is invited.

 The Orange Coast players, who voted as a team to play the conference game against Saddleback, were clearly not focused on baseball Saturday.

Among those who had to be fighting to concentrate on his game was starting pitcher Calvin Drummond. Drummond had been wearing the jersey No. 22, the same number Watanabe used last season, when he hit .353 with seven homers and 40 runs batted in on his way to all-conference and All-Southern California honors.

Instead, the orange No. 22 jersey was displayed on home plate before the game. The No. 22 was also painted in six-foot white numbers on the left-field fence and stenciled in white paint in the grass behind home plate. Several OCC players also wrote the number on their caps and batting helmets and Saddleback second baseman Sean Parvin, a longtime friend and former teammate of Watanabe, with whom he grew up playing baseball in Irvine youth leagues and at Northwood High, had the letters J.W. written in black marker on the white tape that covered his wrists.

Drummond, who switched to jersey No. 30, gave up nine hits and four runs, though only two were earned, in five plus innings to take the loss.

 The UC Irvine men’s basketball team wraps up the regular season Saturday at Cal State Fullerton. The Anteaters (11-18, 7-8) have locked up one of eight berths in the Big West tournament, March 11-14 at the Anaheim Convention Center.

 The No. 2-ranked Vanguard women’s basketball team, which clinched the Golden State Athletic Conference regular-season title with an 86-79 win over No. 17-ranked Westmont Saturday, will open the GSAC Tournament Wednesday as the top seed in the eight-team event.

No. 8-ranked Point Loma Nazarene which won the regular-season and tournament titles last season, only to see Vanguard have the last laugh by winning the NAIA Division I national title, was the only team to defeat Vanguard in conference play this season.

Vanguard (26-3, 19-1 in conference) will host any tournament game in which it plays. The semifinals are Friday and the final is Monday.

 UC Irvine’s men’s varsity eight crew won the featured race Saturday at the Parker Cup in Marina Del Rey, defeating runner-up Loyola Marymount (by nearly three seconds) and San Diego State with a time of six minutes, 10.1 seconds over 2,000 meters.

 The UC Irvine baseball team, ranked No. 5 by Baseball America, takes a 5-2 record into tonight’s home opener against Loyola Marymount at 6 p.m.

First-year LMU Coach Jason Gill should feel at home, since he was a UCI assistant under John Savage.

If you want to see Coach Mike Gillespie’s Anteaters, tonight might be a good time. Other than an exhibition against a Japanese team on March 11, they do not play again at home until March 13, when they open a three-game nonconference series against Tulane.

 The UCI offense, heralded before the season as perhaps the best since the school revived the program in 2002, is hitting just .258 thus far.

At least as surprising has been the torrid start of freshman DJ Crumlich, who is hitting a team-best .455 in 11 at-bats.

Sophomore designated hitter Ryan Fisher is doing his share, hitting .409 with seven RBIs, second only to junior catcher Francis Larson (nine).