Miscues hurt Pirates

"The first goal is to win the Orange Empire Conference," said Sneddon, who has guided his teams to the most wins (1,011) of any junior college coach in state history. "I still believe it's one of the most difficult things to do in the state, because we have such quality teams. That was a win that we needed to keep some separation between us and them. This thing's not over, but it was a good win in our park."

Orange Coast scored its only run on Santa Ana's error in the first. With one out, Kevin Cho singled, and he went to third on an errant pickoff throw. He was then singled home by Beck (two for four), who upped his team-best run batted in total to 38.

Santa Ana answered in the bottom of the inning. With runners on first and third and two outs, Doran appeared to have picked off Marcus Meraz at first. But as Meraz was pursued by Beck, Jones broke for home and scored the hosts' first run.

Altobelli said Beck formerly played shortstop. It was little mistakes like these that hurt OCC, just like when the Dons scored two unearned runs in the teams' first meeting.

"It's a first-and-third play and our first baseman starts running with the ball [toward second]," Altobelli said. "I know [first base] is a new position for him, but we don't have our guys do that. We made some uncharacteristic mistakes that we shouldn't have and Santa Ana, being a good team, capitalized on it."

Orosco stifled the Pirates' bats for much of the rest of the game, going eight innings and allowing five hits and the unearned run. He struck out three and walked one. Chris Carlson got a one-out single in the ninth and Trent Woodward walked, but Santa Ana reliever Garrett Wilson induced a fly out and strikeout to end the game.

The six hits tied a season-low for OCC, which has lost two of three after an eight-game winning streak.

"This would have been a nice one to get, but we've got Tuesday," Altobelli said. "We'll see what happens. We've got five games left."

*

Orange Empire Conference

Santa Ana 5, Orange Coast 1

SCORE BY INNINGS

OCC 100 000 000 – 1 6 3

SA 100 000 04x – 5 10 1

Doran, Evans (8), Vandernaald (8) and Woodward; Orosco, Wilson (9) and Recio. W – Orosco, 6-2. L – Doran, 5-3. 3B – Solley (SA).