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).