A rough day for Pirates

COSTA MESA — With the sun shining and 80-degree temperatures hitting Orange County, it was a great day for the beach. The Orange Coast College baseball team appeared to feel the same way considering its players failed to show up to the ballpark Thursday.

After a four-run first inning by Santa Ana, the Pirates were unable to produce any type of offense or pitching to stop the Dons, who ran away with the Orange Empire Conference victory, 16-3.

Spring break would generally be a decent excuse for this type of game, unfortunately for OCC, the break happened last week.

“We kind of thought we were going to have that last week,” OCC Coach John Altobelli said about the spring-break affect. “But, unfortunately, it kind of trickled over a lit bit.”

The Pirates’ one chance to make it a game early on came in the third when Trevor Jensen reached base via a walk and stole second on a wild pitch. With Jensen on second, Kevin Cho tried to take advantage of the situation and hit a line drive to left, but Jensen was hosed at the plate and the Pirates (14-12, 6-6 in conference) were held at zero.

This was the only offense for the Pirates until the sixth inning, when backup second baseman Matt Akiyama came in and stroked a two-out double.

Mykal Stokes then singled up the middle that led to the speedy Akiyama scoring and finally putting OCC on the board to make it 12-1.

The pitching was just as sparse for the Pirates as the offense was.

Right hander Blake Arthur came into the game in the seventh and looked lights out recording two strikeouts and retiring the first three hitters he faced in two innings of work.

Other than that one inning, it was not surprising how well Santa Ana (20-7, 10-2) hit the ball considering the first-place Dons had won six straight games prior to Thursday. What was surprising was how little offense the Pirates could produce. In the meeting between these two teams March 6, OCC delivered one of the Dons’ only two conference losses, beating them 2-1.

“It’s gonna come down to us doing a little bit of soul searching of how bad we want it,” Altobelli said. “I told them after the game, we have to come out tomorrow, work hard, expect to win and play a little better than we did today.”

After the setback, it became the first time in two years the program has lost three straight games, according to Altobelli.

The good news for the Pirates is the fact that they still have nine conference games left and currently sit in fourth place behind Cypress and Riverside, both are tied for second. This puts OCC in direct contention for receiving a playoff berth and possibly making a run similar to last year’s state championship team.

“Making playoffs would be huge for this team,” Altobelli said. “With all of the guys that we lost off of last year’s roster, we have a lot of new faces and basically a whole new group. So, if we can make playoffs I think that would be a successful year.”

The Pirates will play at Santa Ana Saturday to conclude the three-game season series with the Dons. OCC hopes a win there would propel a late-season surge into the playoffs.

“It was an ugly day but that’s baseball,” Altobelli said. “The nice thing is we don’t have to sleep on it for too long. We can come out Saturday and it will be new day. Baseball can turn around in one day.”

Orange Empire Conference

Santa Ana 16, Orange Coast 3

SCORE BY INNINGS

Meza, Brattet (8), Slettvet (1) and Recio; Krogman, Lee (4), Kuen (6), Page (6), Arthur (7), Terzo (9) and Foster. W – Meza, 7-1. L – Krogman, 2-4. 2B – Duran (SA), O’Neal (SA); Cho (OCC), Akiyama (OCC). 3B – Meraz (SA). HR – Miller (SA).