Pirates topple Cuesta in DH sweep

COSTA MESA -- The Orange Coast College baseball team continued its dominant play over Cuesta College at Wendell Pickens Field with a doubleheader sweep over the Cougars, 2-1 in the opener and 6-0 in the finale on Friday afternoon.

OCC (3-0) has now gone 16-0-1 over the Cougars (2-2) during the regular season at Wendell Pickens Field, dating back to the 2008 season, an amazing stat considering that Cuesta is consistently one of the top teams in Southern California year in and year out.

In the opener, Coast took advantage of a pair of unearned runs and the pitching trio of Miles Sandrum, Kevin Ishimaru and Davis Delorefice made those two runs hold up all the way through, in spite of several good scoring opportunities by the Cougars down the stretch. In four different innings, Cuesta had at least one runner in scoring position with less than two outs and could not bring that runner around to score.

Finally, in the top of the ninth inning, Cuesta loaded the bases with nobody out, but could only bring in a run with a sacrifice fly to bring the Cougars to within a run at 2-1. 

But Delorefice proceeded to strike out the next Cougars' batter and retired pinch-hitter Zachary Amante on a fly ball to center to end the threat and the game.

Coast got on the scoreboard first in the bottom of the second inning when Jacob Gentry doubled to right and advanced to third on an error by the Cuesta right fielder. Walker Keller then scored Gentry from third on a sacrifice fly to put the Pirates up, 1-0.

It stayed that way until the bottom of the fifth. That's when Tristan Hanoian singled with two outs, advanced to second on an infield error off the bat of Skylar Limonchi and scored on an RBI-single by Joey Fregosi, putting Coast, up, 2-0.

Gentry and Clifford Pradd each had two hits for the Pirates, whose offense was held in check by the Cuesta pitching duo of Tyler Chivens and Braeden Gowdy. Chivens allowed two unearned runs over six innings with a walk and four strikeouts, before Gowdy tossed a pair of scoreless innings with two strikeouts.

In Game 2, once again, the Cuesta bats were silenced by the Pirate pitching staff as Michael Ryhlick, Brenden Argomaniz and Cole Van Den Helder allowed no runs on seven hits with 11 strikeouts in a 6-0 win. After four strong innings from Ryhlick, Argomaniz (1-0) tossed four shutout innings of his own to pick up the win in relief. He allowed just two hits, no walks and six strikeouts.

Tommy Williams went 2-for-2 with two RBI, while Delorefice and Caleb Anderson each added a hit and two runs scored for the Pirates.

Coast made the most of its scoring opportunities and scored six times, in spite of only driving in one run by way of a hit. Williams drove in Adam Serrano with a RBI-single in the bottom of the third to put OCC up, 1-0, but from there, the Coast runs came by way of a throwing error by the Cuesta catcher, a bases-loaded walk, a run-scoring wild pitch and a pair of sacrifice flies by Williams and Ryan O'Halloran.

OCC will return to action on Tuesday at home against Long Beach City College, beginning at 2 p.m.