Community College Baseball : Santa Ana Beats Saddleback, 9-8

Santa Ana College right fielder Doug Maher threw out Sean Watts at home with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning Wednesday to preserve the Dons’ 9-8 South Coast Conference victory at Mission Viejo.

Saddleback trailed, 9-6, entering the final inning but scored two runs on Jim Devine’s double. Watts came on to pinch-run for Devine and attempted to score on Dante Scott’s pinch-single, but Maher came up with a perfect throw to the plate to cut him down.

Steve Scarsone went 3 for 4 with two RBIs and Vince Shinholster went 3 for 5 with two RBIs to help Santa Ana improve to 5-3 in conference and 18-6 overall. Todd Inglehart hit a two-run home run in the fourth inning for Saddleback, which fell to 3-6 and 10-11.

Orange Coast, trying to rebound from its worst start in nine years, plays Fullerton today in an SCC game at Fullerton at 2:30 p.m.

The Pirates, defending conference champions, lost six of their eight games in the first round of SCC play. However, Orange Coast defeated Cypress on Tuesday, 8-7, to open the second round with a win and improve its conference record to 3-6 and overall record to 8-12. Fullerton (3-6, 16-12) lost to Cerritos on Tuesday, 6-2.

In other South Coast Conference games today, Cerritos (9-0, 22-2) is at Saddleback (3-6, 10-10), Mt. San Antonio (4-5, 12-8) is at Golden West (6-3, 15-4) and Compton (1-8, 1-11) is at Santa Ana (5-3, 18-6). Cypress has a bye.