Pirates sweep awards for All-OEC honors
COSTA MESA -- It was as good as it could be for the Orange Coast College baseball team in 2021. After overcoming so much to win the 2021 Orange Empire Conference championship for the fourth straight season, the Pirates earned all of the top honors for this year's All-OEC team, as voted on by the head coaches.
The Pirates, who finished the 2021 season 20-7-1 overall and 14-4 in conference play, earned all three pieces of essential hardware at this year's meetings. Outfielder Cary Arbolida was named the conference's Player of the Year, pitcher Kelly Austin was named the OEC's Pitcher of the Year and first-year head coach Nate Johnson became the first-ever winner of the John Altobelli Coach of the Year.
Arbolida returned to the Pirates after a brief stint with UC Santa Barbara and became a season-long fixture into the Pirate lineup. After hitting .457 in a shortened 2020 season, Arbolida picked up where he left off and batted .466 in 2021 with 34 hits, 19 doubles, 13 extra-base hits, five home runs and 20 RBI, while playing in just 20-of-28 games this year. In conference play, Arbolida batted an OEC-best .500 and led the conference in hits (32), triples (3) and home runs (5).
Austin, who was a late-inning reliever for the Pirates in 2020, showed he belonged in the starting rotation and the UCLA-bound freshman didn't disappoint. In six conference starts, Austin went a perfect 6-0 with a 1.26 ERA, allowing just six earned runs over 43 innings to go along with 55 strikeouts. He led the conference in wins, ERA, innings pitched and strikeouts and was a unanimous No. 1 pitcher in the conference.
Johnson became OCC's head coach following the tragic death of Altobelli back on Jan. 26, 2020 and the program has not missed a beat. After dropping the season opener, the Pirates went unbeaten over their next 11 games (10-0-1) and went unbeaten against Irvine Valley (3-0-1), Saddleback (4-0) and Golden West (4-0) en route to capturing OCC's fourth straight conference championship.
Two other Pirate standouts -- third baseman Nolan Funke and outfielder/pitcher Chazz Martinez -- earned first-team, All-Orange Empire Conference honors. Funke was a steady with the glove and the bat for the Pirates, hitting .352 in conference play with 19 hits, four doubles, three triples, 12 runs scored and 13 RBI.
Martinez was OCC's shut-down pitcher and heart-of-the-order batter in 2021, On the mound, Martinez went 2-1 with a complete game in six appearances and averaged nearly 12 strikeouts per nine innings. At the plate, he batted .264 in conference but led the league with six home runs to go along with 14 hits, 17 runs and 15 RBI.
A quartet of Pirates -- pitcher Alex Shadid (3-0, one save, 4.70 ERA), shortstop David Morgan (.269, 18 hits, 18 runs, four HR, 15 RBI) , infielder Ryan O'Halloran (.367, 11 hits, five extra-base hits, 10 runs scored) and outfielder Jared Schatz (.378, 17 hits, 16 runs, four stolen bases) -- earned second-team, All-OEC honors.
