MCC baseball splits Saturday twinbill to start season 3-1

MCC baseball splits Saturday twinbill to start season 3-1

DALLAS The McCook Community College baseball team opened the season winning three of four games after splitting a pair of games Saturday, winning the first game 12-11 and dropping the finale 7-4.

In similar fashion to the season opener Friday, the Indians got out to a commanding lead in Game 1 Saturday but had to hold on for the win in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Blazers loaded the bases with two outs in the seventh before redshirt freshman reliever Nick Wellman (Quincy, Ill.) came up with a strikeout to end the game.

"It was good for us to win a tight game, it got pretty tight in the bottom of the seventh but Nick Wellman struck out the last hitter to end the game," said MCC Coach Jon Olsen.

In Game 2, the Indians had a rough start to the game defensively and were unable to take advantage offensively in the first loss of the season.

"Every mistake we made in that first inning led to a run, it doesn't always happen that way but in Game 2 tonight, it did," Olsen said.

With the win, North Lake College snapped a six-game losing streak to start the season.

The 3-1 Indians are in Kansas for the next four games including a Wednesday game at Garden City (3 p.m.) and a three-game weekend set at Parsons, taking on Labette Community College in a doubleheader Saturday (1 p.m.) and a single nine-inning game Sunday (1 p.m.).

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GAME 1 -- McCook 12, North Lake College 11: After the games were pushed back several hours because of scheduling issues, the Indians exploded for 11 first-inning runs to support MCC freshman starter Mitchell Driver (Sydney, Australia).
The first seven MCC batters reached via three walks, an error and three hit batters. The Tribe had a 4-0 lead before registering the first hit of the game, a single off the bat of sophomore Mark Zhang (Nicholls, Australia). That was followed by a hit batter, a walk, a sacrifice fly, and later a two-out, three-run double by Ricardo Hernandez (freshman, Ponce, Puerto Rico/Carlos Beltran Academy).
"After the big first inning our offense kind of went on cruise control which was disappointing." Olsen said.
The Blazers scored three times in the bottom of the inning, added another in the second, and after MCC went up 12-4 in the fourth inning North Lake cut the lead in half with a four-run frame.
"North Lake did a good job of scoring a run here and there to get themselves back in the game," Olsen said "They did a good job of not rolling over and battled all night."
Troy Shepherd (freshman, McDowell, N.C.) relieved Driver in the fourth inning.
"Troy was really was the key to our victory as he came in in the fourth and threw an inning and two-thirds of shutout baseball when they were closing the gap," Olsen said.
Shepherd allowed one hit, no walks and struck out three.
Nick Wellman pitched the final two innings for MCC and after registering a scoreless sixth, gave up three runs in the seventh inning before striking out the final batter with the bases loaded. It was his fifth strikeout of the game.
MCC scored 12 runs on nine hits including two-hit games by freshmen Trey Taliaferro (Coconut Creek, Fla.) who went two-for-three with two runs, two RBIs and a stolen base and Caleb Eiguren (freshman, Westminster, Colo.) who went two-for-four with an RBI and two runs scored.

GAME 2 North Lake College 7, McCook 4: MCC opened the game in the bottom of the first allowing three walks, committing two errors and a passed ball leading to four runs, three of them unearned.
"We later gave up two more unearned runs in the game," Olsen said. "After we played very clean defensive baseball the first three games, it really bit us in this loss."
Sophomore Isaac Vargas (Greeley, Colo.) battled through 5.1 innings, allowing six hits, one earned run, four walks while striking out eight. Sophomore Connor McGonigal (Omaha Burke) threw the final two-thirds of an inning, allowing one hit.
"Offensively we swing the bat fairly well but had zero timely, or two-out hits," Olsen said
MCC stranded 11 in the loss including seven in the final three innings and hit into a bases-loaded doubleplay to end the game.
"Our strikeout numbers were way too high -- 11 times, and obviously that was the reason we didn't make the most of our opportunities with runners on base," Olsen said.
MCC had 10 hits in the game. Trey Taliaferro went two-for-four with a pair of doubles, two runs and a stolen base. Sophomore Kade Wroot (North Platte) doubled in four at bats with an RBI. Melwin Perez (freshman, San Sebastian, Puerto Rico/Carlos Beltran Academy) had two hits in three trips to the plate.