Breakers end up scoreless

It wasn’t the way the Laguna Beach baseball team had hoped to open up Orange Coast League play.

Despite five losses in previous nonleague play, the Breakers had a shot at getting their league schedule off on a bright note Tuesday against host Calvary Chapel.

Instead, they never were able to get their game in gear and a rather uneventful performance resulted in a 4-0 loss to the Eagles at Orange Coast College.

Laguna Coach Jeff Sears said “nervous” was the word of the day for his team.

“This was our first game, and our players played that way,” he said. “The level of play will get better with each game.

“We need to trust the process and our ability, at which point, we will become good.”

The Breakers came up with some big hits “” and loaded the bases on a few occasions “” but just couldn’t manage to bring a run home.

“We need to execute better with our runners in scoring position,” Sears said.

In spite of a less-than-stellar performance at the plate, Laguna did execute some solid plays defensively. Alex Gillette and Gabe Stansbury had nine and three putouts, respectively.

Zach Nuno struck out five and gave up just four hits in five innings. He also walked eight batters, which gave the Eagles scoring opportunities.

In previous action, Laguna and host Valley Christian split a nonleague doubleheader March 14 in Cerritos. The visiting Breakers edged Valley Christian 3-2 but fell 6-5 to the Crusaders.

The teams have now met three times this season and the outcome of each game has been a single run: Laguna winning the first meeting, 4-3, in the second round of the Newport Elks Tournament.

Laguna hosts Costa Mesa at 3 p.m. today in league action and then begins play Saturday at the Anaheim Lions Tournament.

The tournament continues both Monday and Wednesday