Community College Baseball: Lasers blank Pirates

Orange Coast College baseball coach John Altobelli could not remember off the top of his head when the last time his team had been shut out. But the Pirates’ production of just three hits, including two infield singles in a 4-0 Orange Empire Conference setback at Irvine Valley on Saturday, didn’t seem to Altobelli to be much of an aberration this season.

“Even in our wins, we haven’t been scorching the ball,” Altobelli said. “I can count on one hand the balls we hit hard today.”

IVC freshman Ryan Abady threw his second complete game to master OCC (12-8, 3-2 in conference), ranked No. 10 in Southern California, on Saturday. The left-hander improved to 4-0 and has now allowed just four earned runs in 42 1/3 innings (an 0.85 earned-run average).

OCC, which had only two runners reach second base, only one of which reached third, had the Nos. 3-9 spots in its lineup go a combined zero for 23. The Pirates, who had gone 33 games since being blanked and have been shut out only twice in the last two seasons (65 games), saw their team batting average dip to .255 to rank No. 64 in the state among 88 schools.

Freshman shortstop Chaneng Varela was two for three with a pair of infield singles and sophomore leadoff man Robert Longtree singled through the right side in the eighth inning and also walked twice.

Longtree, a starting outfielder on last year’s state and national championship team, leads the team with a .392 batting average. But he was picked off first base after walking to open the game, and he dropped a fly ball in shallow center in IVC’s three-run eighth inning.

Longtree’s miscue, with the bases loaded, no outs and one run in, was not one of the Pirates’ four errors, since he was able to throw to third base for a force out, making the play an 8-5 fielder’s choice. But all four IVC runs were unearned, relegating freshman starter Casey Costello to his second loss in five decisions, despite pitching effectively into the eighth inning.

Costello allowed just four hits, walked two and struck out three, though he was charged with all four runs.

Reliever Scott Serigstad gave up singles to three of the four batters he faced, with the lone out (the aforementioned fly ball that Longtree failed to catch), producing a run batted in.

Jack Pabich induced an inning-ending double play from the only hitter he faced to stop the bleeding, but Abady, who issued his fifth walk with two outs in the ninth, was able to finish out the whitewash, in which he struck out four.

“[Abady] did a good job of mixing and matching [his pitches], but I’m frustrated with our inability to battle and compete with two strikes,” Altobelli said. “I thought we gave away too many at-bats and didn’t grind them out enough. And we must lead the nation in pop flies (nine putouts were recorded by IVC outfielders and two more pop-ups were fielded by Lasers’ infielders).

The No. 17-ranked Lasers finished with seven hits, three of which came off the bat of designated hitter Robbie Espinosa, who had one RBI.

Lucas Tancas was two for four for the No. 17-ranked hosts (11-7, 3-2), who lowered their season ERA to 2.36, nearly a run better than OCC’s 3.11 mark.

IVC opened the scoring in the second inning when Varela was charged with an error for not fielding a chopper to his left that went into center field and plated Espinosa from second base.

IVC managed just three base runners over the next five innings against Costello. One of those was thrown out at third trying to advance on a pitch that catcher Jack Kruger blocked and gathered in time to throw to third in time. Another runner was erased on a double play.

“He gave us a good effort,” Altobelli said of Costello. “But it was kind of a wasted effort on our part, due to our lack of offense.”

OCC is 4-4 over its last eight games, during which it has averaged 3.5 runs. That stretch followed a stint in which the Pirates averaged seven runs while winning six of seven games. OCC has produced more than 10 hits in only four games this season and has registered 10 hits three times.

Last season, OCC had 10 or more hits in 31 of 45 games.

The Pirates play host to Golden West on Tuesday at 2 p.m.

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Orange Empire Conference

Irvine Valley 4, Orange Coast 0

SCORE BY INNINGS

OCC 000 000 000 – 0 3 4

IVC 100 000 03x – 4 7 1

Costello, Serigstad (8), Pabich (8) and Kruger; Abady and Williams. W – Abady, 4-0. L – Costello, 3-2. 2B – Tancas (IV).