Originally written for publishing on April 16, 2013.

The Hornet baseball team dropped two consecutive conference games on Thursday and Friday, after winning 11 conference games in a row.

The first loss came Thursday, at home, against Orange Coast College. OCC played like the better team for the entire game and pulled out a 7-0 victory.

In the top of the second inning, Cody Bruder hit a single up the middle that brought in Austin Saenz, and gave the Pirates a 1-0 lead.

OCC went on to score two more in the top of the third. Back to back RBI doubles by Cristian Salina and Danny Jiminez expanded the lead to 3-0.

The three runs would be more than enough as Pirates’ pitcher Kyle Dowdy had his best stuff. Dowdy went the full nine innings, while only giving up four hits and a walk, while striking out six Hornets.

The Pirates added two more in the top of the fourth inning, both unearned. Zach Nehrir reached on a fielder’s choice that brought in the fourth run. Ricky Navarro followed that up with an RBI single and the Pirates had a five-run lead.

The Pirates would score two more runs in the top of the seventh inning to conclude the scoring. Danny Jimenez singled in another unearned run. Manny Argomaniz followed Jiminez with an RBI groundout to short.

Ryan Romero took the loss for the Hornets. Romero went four innings, while giving up five runs (three earned), on seven hits and a walk.

The following day, the Hornets hit the road to visit Saddleback and fell 1-0.

Neither team got much going offensively, and both were powered by complete games by their respective starters. The only run came in the bottom of the seventh on an RBI fielder’s choice by Casey Bennett.

Hornet ace, Jeff Curran, turned in another solid outing in the losing effort. In his eight innings pitched, Curran went eight innings and gave up five hits, while striking out three. The loss dropped his record to 6-2.

Tyler Brashears was even more dominant for the Gauchos. He went nine innings and only gave up three hits while striking out five Hornets.

The Hornets are still in a great position and have a three game lead in the Orange Empire Conference with five games remaining to be played. The team will take on Saddleback at home, Tuesday, at 2 p.m.