PIRATES DEFEND STATE BASEBALL CROWN!

FRESNO -- Sometimes the biggest pieces of motivation come in the most unlikeliest of places. Such was the case for the Orange Coast College baseball team, which took an unintentional slight and battled through the top teams in the nation to shock the world and reclaim the state title at the California Community College Athletic Association State Baseball Championship on Monday at Fresno City College's John Euless Ballpark.

"(On Saturday), the director of the state tournament came up to me and said that it appeared we would crown a second straight national championship from this tournament, which meant he didn't think we were going to win this thing," OCC head coach John Altobelli said of his underdog Pirates. "So we adopted the motto, 'why not us?' ... it was more than a motto ... it was something we believed in and we went into this weekend with the intent of winning a state championship and I'm so proud of the guys for believing that they could do it and making it happen. This is a special team ... one I will never forget."

The Final Four lineup featured three of the top 10 teams in the entire nation, according to perfectgame.org -- No. 1 San Joaquin Delta (41-7), No. 2 Palomar (37-8) and No. 9 Fresno City (35-11) ... oh yeah, and the Pirates (30-17) -- the team that finished third in the Orange Empire Conference and stood no chance of winning.

After topping Delta on Saturday, 5-0, and Palomar on Sunday, 3-0, the Pirates stood just one win away from repeating as state champions and on Monday, that return trip to the top of the mountain was complete with a 9-4 win over Delta in the title game.

The Pirates found themselves trailing for the first time in the tournament in the top half of the second inning when Mustang Nate Easley ripped a two-run single that snapped a Final Four scoreless streak of 26 2/3 innings by OCC, dating back to last year.

Coast, a team that struggled to find consistent offensive success throughout the postseason, caught lightning in a bottle in the bottom half of the fourth inning. Going up against Delta closer Jacob Rosales, the Pirates exploded for an eight-run frame, batting around the order without recording an out along the way. 

Tommy Bell reached base on an error to start the frame and after back-to-back singles by Jack Kruger and Stephen Corona, Coast had the bases loaded. James McLellan followed with a run-scoring single to left that scored Bell to make it 2-1, sending Rosales to the sidelines. Reliever Tucker McPhaul came in and issued a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch to Stefan Panayiotou that scored Kruger to tie the game at 2.

Nick Grimes followed with a two-run double down the left-field line that scored Corona and McLellan to put the Pirates ahead 4-2, a lead they would not lose the rest of the way.

A perfectly-placed safety squeeze by Robert Longtree scored Panayiotou to make it 5-2 before an RBI-single by Channeng Varela and back-to-back sacrifice flies by Bell and Kruger completed the eight-run marathon.

But perhaps the momentum swing for the Pirates occurred the inning before. With Corona struggling on the mound, the Pirates turned to reliever Scott Serigstad (7-3), who came into the game with Coast behind 2-0 and with runners on first and second with nobody out. It was a half-inning that seemed to take forever, but in the end, Serigstad worked his way out of the jam and kept the Pirates into the game.

That would be the end of Serigstad's stress the rest of the afternoon. With the big lead in hand, the sophomore righty beared down and blew away the Mustangs' offense, allowing just one hit over six innings with two walks and eight strikeouts. 

Reliever-turned-starter Dominic Purpura finished the game off in the ninth as the Pirates returned to the pitcher's mound of John Euless Ballpark for one final dogpile. Purpura, who tossed a complete-game shutout on Saturday, earned Co-Most Valuable Player honors with Kruger, who went 4-for-8 with two runs and two RBI in the tournament and caught all three games in the Fresno heat.

Coast -- 18-2 over the past two postseasons -- became the first team since the 2000-02 Riverside City College Tigers to win back-to-back state titles and it was the first time in school history that the Pirates accomplished the feat. OCC now has six state championships in school history -- 1956, 1960, 1980, 2009, 2014 and 2015. It is also the third straight state crown won by defeating Delta in the title round.

The key to OCC's success in this year's postseason -- pitching and defense. OCC hurlers finished the postseason by allowing 21 earned runs over 99 innings in the playoffs (a 1.94 ERA). And, with the exception of one dredful playoff game (a four-error, 13-0 loss to Glendale), Coast played a .977 team defense with only eight errors throughout the rest of the postseason.

"This was a team that nobody gave any chance to," Altobelli said. "Even in the Final Four banquet program, we were described as 'considerable underdogs'. But, we believed in ourselves and we managed to play our best baseball at the right time. It never gets old."