Cypress, Calif. April 14- Cypress College Baseball battled for first place in Orange Empire Conference League against Orange Coast College at home last Thursday, April 9.
Nathan Kutcha
Cypress Chargers needed this win against Orange Coast Pirates in order to clench first place in OEC league. Nathan
Kutcha said of the pressure, “We just focused on our game and didn’t try to do too much.”
Orange Coast Pirates took an early 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning. Cypress Chargers responded in the bottom of the second with a RBI double from Joe Van Marter and back to back RBI singles from Grant Mayeaux and Aaron Case making the score 3-1 in favor of Cypress.
John Santospago
In a back and fourth battle in the third and fourth innings, Orange Coast and Cypress exchanged three runs a piece with Cypress still leading at 6-4. Orange Coast came back and closed the gap in the fifth with one run and took the lead with four runs in the sixth inning. With the Chargers down 9-6, Aaron Case hit a solo home run in the bottom of the sixth. John Santospago commented on Case’s home run, “It was huge for the team to switch up the momentum and get us back on track and back into the game.”
After a scoreless seventh inning, both teams put up one run in the eighth. Entering the top of the ninth inning Orange Coast lead Cypress 10-8. Cypress’ defense and key pitching kept Orange Coast scoreless in the top of the ninth, putting the pressure on their offense to win the game. “The mindset was to just stay calm and get runners on base. Each guy just worked on winning their bat.” said Blake Ronca.
Aaron Case
Cypress mounted a comeback with bases loaded and only one out. Brandon Brintz was able to score off of a sacrifice fly to deep center field by Blake Ronca closing the gap at 9-10. Jack Flansburg then came up with the bases loaded and two outs. Flansburg hit a sharp ground ball that tied up the shortshop and he was able to reach first base on a throwing error. Justin Donavon and Andrew Ramos were then able to come around and score on the errant throw to give the Chargers a comeback victory at 11-10. “The energy was wild since it was such an unexpected ending. We were all very excited to be able to come back and win the game.” said Grant Mayeaux.
Cypress Chargers continued OEC league play at home on Saturday, April 11 with a 9-2 loss to Riverside. Cypress won the rematch against Riverside 8-7 as visitors today, April 14.
