COMMUNITY COLLEGE ROUNDUP : Cypress Humbles Rancho Santiago

Rancho Santiago baseball Coach Don Sneddon had to convince his team Saturday that it probably will win the Orange Empire Conference championship.

He also had to convince the players that they have a good chance of winning the State championship.

Otherwise the Dons might not have believed it. Cypress College had just beaten them, 19-1, at Rancho Santiago.

In the top of the first inning, Cypress (25-11, 11-8 in conference) loaded the bases after four batters and then Tom Puppe drilled a good pitch by Rancho Santiago’s Kent Dowding about 375 feet to right-center field for a grand slam.

The pitch was a low-and-away fastball on a 3-and-2 count to Puppe, a left-handed batter, but Puppe kept his head down and reached out to get the hit.

“I wasn’t really thinking ‘home run’--I just wanted to pull the ball,” Puppe said. “I didn’t think it was a home run when I hit it because it was more of a line drive.”

It got out in a hurry. Three batters later, so did Dowding.

Dowding gave up a double to the next batter, Kevin Cook, then caught Abijah Alastra’s pop fly for the second out of the inning. But Francisco Vega homered to left to end Dowding’s day.

When the Dons finally batted, Cypress pitcher Robert Legendre (5-2) and Cypress’ defense set them down quickly. Legendre, a freshman from Western High School, pitched 6 1/3 innings, striking out seven and giving up six hits. Legendre also benefited from two double plays.

“Every aspect of our game broke down. I was disappointed with our effort,” Sneddon said. “They (the Chargers) are the top-scoring team in the conference and you saw it today.”

Cypress Coach Scott Pickler, whose team moved within three games of Rancho Santiago with five games remaining, didn’t place too much emphasis on the outcome.

“I don’t think there’s enough time to overtake Rancho Santiago,” Pickler said. “We just want to be able to wrap up second place for the playoffs.”

Cypress is tied for second with Riverside (25-11, 11-8) behind Rancho Santiago (32-7, 14-5).

In other Orange Empire Conference baseball:

Fullerton 7, Saddleback 4--Fullerton (23-15, 9-10) sent 12 men to bat and scored seven runs in the bottom of the third, highlighted by Tom Wilson’s grand slam, his 11th home run of the season. Chris Johnson followed with a home run, his fifth, and Jimmy Burchit (9-4) pitched his ninth complete game of the season, a school record. Mark Wells hit a two-run home run in the third inning for Saddleback (12-21, 4-15), which lost its sixth in a row. Buster Nietzke had his 100th career hit, becoming the second player in Saddleback history to have 100 or more hits. The other is Steve DeAngelis, an outfielder for the Angels’ triple-A affiliate, Edmonton.

Riverside 12, Orange Coast 11--Darvin Traylor’s eighth-inning home run gave host Riverside a 12-9 lead. Orange Coast scored in the top of the ninth inning on Dan Redington’s two-run single. Riverside (28-10, 12-7) has won four consecutive games and is three games behind Rancho Santiago. Greg Fife was five for five, including two doubles, for Orange Coast (23-14, 8-11).

In nonconference softball:

Cypress 4-3, Taft 2-1--Cypress scored three runs in the first inning of the first game and Cindy Hover (8-0) pitched a three-hitter. Karrie Swartz (6-3) pitched a five-hitter and Lisa Hawthorne and Priscilla Sarmiento each had two hits and a run batted in in the second game for host Cypress (34-10).