COMMUNITY COLLEGE ROUNDUP : Unpredictable Cypress Rallies Past Orange Coast
Cypress, one of the most unpredictable teams in the Orange Empire Conference in recent weeks, rallied for a 14-8 victory over Orange Coast on Thursday at Cypress.
In the previous four games, third-place Cypress had defeated second-place Riverside, lost to sixth-place Golden West, defeated first-place Rancho Santiago and lost to last-place Saddleback.
“I never know which team is going to show up,” Cypress Coach Scott Pickler said. “Maybe we relax too much against the teams below us, but we just can’t do that.”
Things looked bad early Thursday as the Chargers fell behind, 8-4, after OCC (24-15-1, 9-12 in conference) scored three runs in the fourth and four in the fifth.
But the Chargers (26-12, 12-9) rallied for four in the sixth to tie it and five in the seventh to put it away.
Sean Drinkwater and Doug McConathy had run-scoring singles, Troy Babbitt had an RBI double and another run scored on an error by Cypress in the sixth.
In the seventh, Drinkwater singled to score Rob Utz with the go-ahead run. Utz had started the inning with a bloop double to right.
Utz and McConathy were hit by pitches with the bases loaded, Eric Nygard walked with the bases full and Tom Puppe had an RBI groundout for Cypress, which sent 11 batters to the plate. In other Orange Empire Conference baseball:
Saddleback 8, Golden West 6--Ryan Relph hit a grand slam in the bottom of the eighth inning to give Saddleback (14-21, 6-15) the 8-6 lead.
Fullerton 7, Riverside 6 (10 innings)--Fullerton rallied twice, scoring two runs in the bottom of the ninth to tie the score and three in the bottom of the 10th to win. Riverside (28-11, 12-8) scored twice in the top of the 10th. Fullerton (24-16, 10-11) loaded the bases with no one out in the bottom of the inning and scored a run on an error. Mike Williams drove in the tying run with a single and the winning run scored when Bryan Mullings’ ground ball rolled through shortstop Ray Cervantes’ legs.
At the Ojai tennis tournament:
Orange Coast and Golden West players advance--Peter Davidson of Orange Coast won, 6-0, 6-1, in a first-round match and won, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, in a second-round match to advance to the third round of the tournament. Scott Hansen of Saddleback defeated Kiarash Salek of Santa Monica, 6-2, 6-2, in a first-round match and defeated Eusebio Sarabia of Mt. San Antonio, 6-1, 6-0, to advance to the third round. Esteban Saba of Saddleback defeated Jeff Turnbull of Victor Valley, 6-1, 6-0, in the second round. In doubles, Max Alvarez and Fabien Skarvad of Saddleback had a bye in the first round and defeated Bob Cheshmazar and Jim Ruddlesen of LA Pierce, 6-7, 6-1, 6-1, to advance to the third round.