Community College Baseball: OCC Pirates prevail, don’t impress

The Orange Coast College baseball diamond was recently upgraded with crisp new blue wind screens and distance markers along the outfield fence.

But even the pristine packaging wasn’t enough to disguise a clunker of a nonconference game against College of the Desert on Wednesday.

The defending state champion Pirates, ranked No. 1 in the Southern California preseason poll, came away with a 6-4 victory that extends their winning streak to five. But in terms of satisfaction, there was very little gained by Coach John Altobelli’s squad.

The winning streak, and all but one of OCC’s wins, have come against teams with a combined 2-18 record. And Desert, which has now lost six straight, posted its lone win in nine contests with a 5-4 triumph over the Pirates on Jan. 31. So Altobelli is understandably less giddy than might be expected.

“I’m frustrated, because we have to play better than this in the Orange Empire Conference [in which seven teams entered Wednesday with a combined 39-6-1 record, with no team having more losses than the Pirates (7-3)], or else it’s not going to look good,” Altobelli said. “I just keep trying to give these guys warning shots over their heads that we have to play better in the OEC than what we’re doing.”

The Pirates, who had six errors in a 6-5 win at Long Beach on Tuesday, committed two errors Wednesday, one of which led to an unearned run.

OCC also stranded 12 baserunners against the Roadrunners, whose pitchers issued six walks and hit four batters.

OCC, which has won its last three contests by five combined runs, used eight players to produce its nine hits and stole four bases.

The Pirates were also unspectacular, though successful, on the mound, where three hurlers combined to strike out 12, including eight in six innings by starter and winner Scott Serigstad.

But Serigstad walked three, hit two more and his errant throw to second base after fielding a comebacker was responsible for Desert’s unearned run.

“He is just inconsistent with his breaking ball, and that’s the frustrating thing,” Altobelli said of Serigstad, a sophomore bounce-back from Grand Canyon University who evened his record at 1-1. “We have a [Desert] team that is not a real good offensive team and we can’t throw strikes with get-it-over [the plate] curveballs. That’s hard to watch.”

Also hard to watch was sophomore right fielder Tommy Bell leaving the game with assistance after he was hit in the head in the fifth inning. Bell, who was hit by a pitch in his first two plate appearances also entered the game batting .411, including a torrid 13-for-19 surge in the first five games of February (.684). He had amassed eight of his 11 runs batted in in those five games and entered the contest second in the state in RBIs, one behind the leader.

“[Bell] has been swinging a sweet stick, so hopefully he’ll be OK and he can get back in there [Thursday] against Long Beach City,” Altobelli said.

Bell, who did not appear to lose awareness, sat near home plate for a few minutes, before walking off with assistance. He appeared to be OK after the game, but his availability will not be determined until at least Thursday.

With the benefit of the victory, at least Altobelli’s sense of humor was not compromised.

“When we shake hands with the opposing coaches [after the game], we normally give firm shakes,” Altobelli said with a smile. “But we just kind of gave limp ones today.”

Freshman second baseman Nick Grimes was two for four with an RBI to lead the OCC offense, which included an RBI triple by sophomore first baseman Cole Rutherford, who also scored twice.

Sophomore shortstop Jeff Nellis had a double, while freshman catcher Jake Pulcheon drove in a run with a groundout and sophomore designated hitter Stephen Corona plated another with a sacrifice fly.

Jeff Belger, who came in for Bell, singled, stole a base and scored a run.

Pulcheon and freshman third baseman Wyatt Hoppie both contributed singles to OCC’s modest offensive display.

“[Robert] Longtree is out and we obviously miss him, because he’s kind of our guy who stirs things up and gets things going at the top of the order,” Altobelli said of the sophomore left fielder who was hitting .440 with 11 hits and eight runs in seven games, before being excused to tend to a family matter that will sideline him until next week.

Freshman right-hander Jack Pabich recorded the final three outs to notch his first save for the Pirates, who lifted their team batting average from .278 to .295 against a Roadrunners pitching staff that came in with a 10.06 earned-run average.

—

Nonconference

Orange Coast 6, Desert 4

SCORE BY INNING

COD 000 020 020 – 4 5 2

OCC 030 001 20x – 6 9 2

Hayes, Burciaga (5), Akanuma (7) and Skipper, Figueroa (5), Cerda (8); Serigstad, Stablien (7), Eppenbach (8), Pabich (9) and Pulcheon. W – Serigstad, 1-1. L – Hayes, 0-1. Sv – Pabich (1). 2B – Nellis (OCC). 3B – Rutherford (OCC).