Pirates left green following 7-1 loss to Cypress

COSTA MESA -- The Orange Coast College baseball team had a St. Patrick's Day to forget on Saturday as the Pirates dropped a 7-1 decision to visiting Cypress College on Saturday at Wendell Pickens Field.

After suffering a heartbreaking 9-8 loss to the Chargers on Thursday at Cypress College, the Pirates (12-9, 4-2 in Orange Empire Conference) fell behind early and never could climb all the way back.

Skylar Limonchi and Domenic Donato each had two hits for Coast, but 10 OCC strikeouts  and 12 runners left on base were two stats that were just too much to overcome.

The pitching wasn't much better as Cypress (16-6, 3-3) took advantage of eight walks to help generate some late-game offense, turning a 2-1 lead into a blowout.

Dominic Campeau went 3-for-4 including a home run, two runs and two RBI for the Chargers.

After falling behind 2-0, Coast trimmed the deficit in half in the bottom of the fourth inning. A one-out walk by Josh Berman was followed by back-to-back singles by Donato and Ramiro Velasco to load the bases. Jacob Gentry followed with a sacrifice fly to bring in Berman, but Cypress starter Jake Mahood (2-2) wiggled out of that inning with no further damage.

Coast had runners in scoring position in the sixth, but Mahood picked up a big two-out strikeout to end the threat. Campeau immediately followed with a solo home run to make it 3-1 in the top of the seventh. Cypress would add a second run in that frame and followed that up with three more runs in the eighth to cap off the scoring.

Mahood allowed one run on seven hits with five strikeouts before reliever Adrian Chaidez struck out five more Pirates over his two innings of work.

Juan Sanjuan (0-1) took the loss for OCC after allowing two runs (one earned) over three innings.

Coast will open up a three-game series against Golden West on Tuesday at GWC, beginning at 2 p.m. Game 2 is set for Thursday at 2 p.m. at OCC with the finale back at GWC on Friday at 2 p.m.