Orange Coast Leads the Way in All-Conference Accolades

COSTA MESA -- It was as good as it could be for the Orange Coast College baseball team in 2021. After overcoming so much in 2020 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 renamed 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. 

Cypress and Santa Ana each finished tied for second in conference with an 11-7 record and they also had their share of first-team, all-conference honors.

For the Chargers, four players earned first-team spots, including infielder Coby Morales (.349, 29 hits, 16 runs, four HR, 23 RBI), infielder Dalton Sloniger (.400 30 hits, 15 runs, 16 RBI), outfielder Andrew Sojka (.352, 31 hits, 25 runs 24 RBI) and DH Brenden Harris (.316, 24 hits, 12 runs, 13 RBI).

For the Dons, first-team honors went to starting pitcher Josh Haley (3-0, one save, one CG, 1.44 ERA, 30 strikeouts, 25 innings pitched), infielder Nick Lopez (.405, 30 hits, 17 runs, five HR, 20 RBI), infielder Cedric Perez (.344, 22 hits, 14 runs, 13 RBI) and outfielder Griffin Selby (.342, 27 hits, 11 runs, 14 RBI).

Release by Tony Altobelli (OCC SID / Baseball Rep.)