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California Community Colleges Commission on Athletics Baseball Championship May 26-28 Fresno City College Fresno, CA

Cypress College

Cypress College "Chargers" (29-20, 11-13, 5-1)
It has been an up and down Cinderella season for the Chargers. Two straight wins over Southern California's top seeded Santa Ana College highlighted the regular season, but those victories were followed by a streak where the Chargers managed just one win in the next seven games to close out the regular season.

Nineteen regular season losses were the most the Chargers had suffered since 1998. However, Cypress stepped it up for the playoffs with four straight wins and then defeated Los Angeles Harbor to clinch a second consecutive return to the Final Four.

Cypress' pitching staff is led by freshman righthander Alex Curry who boasts an 9-3 record and a 2.32 earned run average. In 128 innings, Curry has 102 strikeouts. Another freshman righthander, Michael Olmstead (8-4), has 52 strikeouts in 64 innings and a 4.34 ERA. Both received All-OEC recognition.

The Chargers offense is led by sophomore third baseman Brandon Laird who has a .386 average. He leads the team in RBI (41), homeruns (9) and slugging percentage (.640). Bryan Resnick, another sophomore infielder, hit .358 with a slugging percentage of .530. Like Laird, he received All-OEC recognition.

Cypress won the 2003 and 1997 state championships at Fresno City's John Euless Ballpark. CC also won it all in 1991 and 1994. So, like FCC, Sacramento and Riverside they have taken care of business on Memorial Day weekend. The four teams represent a total of 17 California community college baseball championships.

Narratives were prepared for the COA by these members of the Calif. Community College Sports Information Assn.: Teresa Wang, Cypress; Robert Schmidt, Riverside; Steve Gill, Sacramento City and Woody Wilk, Fresno City.