Pirates hang on for 8-6 win over Bulldogs to sweep playoff series

COSTA MESA -- Art Vidro pitched seven strong innings and Cody Nulph went 4-for-5 with two runs and three RBI to lead the Orange Coast Coast College baseball team to an 8-6 win over Allan Hancock, giving the Pirates the series sweep in the Southern California Super Regional playoffs.

With the win, the top-seeded Pirates (31-9) advance to the Southern California Sectionals, where they will play the worst-remaining seeded team in another best-of-three series, beginning on Friday at 2 p.m. at OCC's Wendell Pickens Field.

Saturday's win, Coast's 10th in a row, did not come without some drama as the 13th-seeded Bulldogs (24-16-1) put up a fight over the final two innings and nearly clawed all the way back from an 8-1 deficit.

AHC scored three runs in the eighth and added two more in the ninth, but reliever Spencer Moran picked up his third save of the season as he retired two of the three batters he faced, leaving the potential tying run on base to end the game.

Coast (the visiting team on Saturda) took control of things in the top of the fifth. With the score tied at 1, Cody Bruder walked and L. Grant Davis singled to left to open things. Nulph followed with a two-run double down the left-field line, scoring Bruder and Davis. Chris Iriart (2-for-5, one run, two RBI) followed with a double of his own, scoring Nulph to make it 4-1.

After Iriart moved to third on a passed ball, Justin Broussard used a safety squeeze to bring him in, putting OCC ahead, 5-1.

Vidro (6-3), who is 2-0 in his two playoff starts, allowed just one earned run over seven innings, walking three and striking out seven. In fact, in his last four appearances, the freshman lefty had allowed one earned run over 16 2/3 innings with five walks and 15 strikeouts.

After a allowing a run in the third, Vidro clamped things down and retired 12 straight during one span.

Broussard singled in a run in the top of the seventh and in the eighth, an RBI-triple by Bruder and an RBI-single by Nulph have Coast a comfortable 8-1 lead heading into the bottom of the eighth.

But AHC turned three hits and a pair of Pirate errors into three runs in the eighth to make it 8-4 and a bases-loaded walk and sacrifice fly by the Bulldogs in the ninth made it 8-6, but with runners on first and second with two outs, Moran coaxed a soft liner right to third baseman Jake Thumm, ending the game and the season for the Bulldogs.