Community College Baseball: Pirates outlast Comets
When last we left the Orange Coast College baseball team, the Pirates were dog–piled after extending a long winning streak, thanks largely to the heroics of their sweet-swinging bounce-back shortstop.
Fast forward to Thursday’s season-opening, 11-inning win over visiting Palomar and the Pirates seem to have picked up where they left off.
Sophomore shortstop Jeff Nellis, who played last season at the University of Nevada, lined a bases-loaded single into center field to drive in the game-winner. The one-out single allowed OCC, ranked No. 1 in the Southern California preseason poll, to edge the No. 2-ranked Comets, 5-4.
Nellis inherited the job from Cody Nulph, who finished his only season at OCC on a 30-game hitting streak to help the Pirates win their final 15 games en route to the 2014 state championship.
Additional familiar elements of Thursday’s nonconference victory were strong pitching performances by returners Dominic Purpura and Art Vidrio.
Vidrio, a sophomore starter who was 8-3 last season, including 4-0 during a 9-0 playoff run, worked six quality innings. The left-hander surrendered two runs on five hits and exited with a 4-2 lead.
But Vidrio’s would-be win was squandered, due to an error and an overruled call at first base that helped the Comets score twice in the seventh inning to knot the score and eventually force extra innings.
OCC reliever Dominic Purpura, who earned the save in the state-title-clinching win last season, picked up the victory. Purpura allowed four hits in five innings and only one of the two runs he gave up were earned.
Nellis was one of three Pirates with two hits and he drove in two runs. But Nellis said the moment was too big for him in the ninth inning, when he struck out to end the inning with a runner on first base.
“I was nervous,” Nellis said of his ninth-inning strikeout. “I had a few butterflies still in the system, being the first game and everything, and I let [reliever Anthony Balderas] get the best of me.”
Nellis was behind in the count, 1-2, against Palomar reliever Matt Flake in the 11th.
“I just knew [Flake] wasn’t going to have anything that would blow by me,” Nellis said. “So I was sitting back, I got a [2-2] curveball that he left up and I was able to flick it up the middle.”
Nellis was swarmed by teammates between first and second base after his game-winning hit, his first of his college career, he said.
Sophomore center fielder Chris Blasing began the winning rally by reaching on an errant throw to first by the catcher after the pitch he struck out on hit the dirt behind home plate.
Sophomore Stefan Panayiotou, who was two for two and drove in a pair of runs in the sixth to break a 2-2 tie, walked behind Blasing and both advanced on a well-executed sacrifice bunt by freshman second baseman Nick Grimes.
Sophomore left fielder Robert Longtree, who was two for four, was intentionally walked to load the bases and set the stage for Nellis.
OCC benefited from two unearned runs, the first of which helped them rally from a 2-0 first-inning deficit to knot the score.
But a ground ball that went through OCC first baseman Stephen Corona for an error, proved costly in the Comets’ two-run seventh, that included the aforementioned umpire reversal.
With runners on first and second, Corona fielded a ground ball and flipped to Purpura covering first base. It appeared Purpura beat the Palomar runner to the bag, and the base umpire called the runner out.
But after a discussion with the home-plate umpire, the call was changed after the umpire behind the plate said he clearly saw that Purpura’s foot did not touch the base.
“The intent is for the umpires to get it right and he told me he clearly saw it,” OCC Coach John Altobelli said of the reversal that eventually allowed the visitors to score and make it 4-4.
—
Nonconference
Orange Coast 5, Palomar 4
SCORE BY INNINGS
Pal 200 000 200 00 – 4 10 1
OCC 001 102 000 01 – 5 10 1
Barnett, Huber (6), Turski (7), Balderas (8), Gomez (9), Flake (11) and Christy; Vidrio, Purpura (7) and Kruger. W – Purpura, 1-0. L – Gomez, 0-1. 2B – Breault (P), Kruger (OCC).