COMMUNITY COLLEGE ROUNDUP : Orange Coast’s Victory Helps Ease Frustration

About the only thing that didn’t frustrate Orange Coast Coach John Altobelli was that the host Pirates beat Golden West, 8-7, in an Orange Empire Conference baseball game Saturday.

Among the frustrating things: only one umpire showed up and Orange Coast made three errors, which led to unearned runs. The Pirates also made a couple of running mistakes, one of which cost them a run.

Orange Coast (14-11, 6-3 in conference) scored twice in the sixth inning to take an 8-6 lead. But Golden West’s Nate Freeman opened the ninth with a double down the left-field line. John Matlock’s two-out single drove in Freeman but reliever Mike Guymon struck out Ken Miles to end the game and get his first save.

“Boy was that ugly,� Altobelli said. “But the bottom line is that we got it done. It’s unfortunate that only one umpire showed up for a game this important. . . . It was nice to finally be on this end of a close game after having so many injuries early in the season.�

Nick Valencia, out with an injured finger much of the season, was playing in his seventh game of the season. He had two hits, scored a run and drove in another.

Mondo Fonseca, who missed the first two weeks of the season because of an injured ankle, had a key run batted in double in the fifth inning as OCC scored four runs to take a 6-4 lead.

But Golden West rallied for two in the sixth on an error and Tom Fill’s sacrifice fly.

Forest Long opened the sixth for OCC with a walk. He went to second on a wild pitch, took third on a fly out and scored on a balk that drew a loud and long argument from Golden West Coach Roberto Villarreal.

Garrett Vitale had a home run, his sixth, and a double and Freeman had three hits and scored two runs for Golden West (9-17, 3-7).