MCC Baseball holds on for 8-6 opening day win

GARDEN CITY, Kan. – The McCook Community College baseball team opened the season with eight strong innings Tuesday then withstood a six-run rally to hold on 8-6 win over Garden City Community College.

"It was good to get the 'W' -- honestly for eight innings we played about as good as you can play in all three phases," said MCC Coach Jon Olsen.

Sophomore Ethan Fritz (Bellevue, Neb.) started on the mound and pitched six shutout innings for MCC, allowing just two hits and three walks. He struck out six. Mitchell Driver (Sydney, Australia) followed with two scoreless innings of relief, walking two and striking out two.

"Fritz and Driver were really good, and we played excellent defense," Olsen said. "Our offense executed well and we cashed in our opportunities."

MCC took the lead in the second inning. Freshman Josh Masonave (Austin, Texas) walked, went to third on a double by Melwin Perez (sophomore San Sebastian, Puerto Rico), and scored on an RBI-groundout off the bat of and Jordan Demarce (sophomore, Las Vegas).

Sophomore Daniel Bannon (Sydney, Australia) singled to lead of the MCC fifth but after two outs, a Broncbuster error opened the door and freshman Ethan Murdoch (Swift Current, Saskatchewan) capitalized with a three-run home run to left to put MCC up 4-0.

MCC took advantage of opportunities in the sixth inning. Perez walked to start the inning followed by a Demarce single and a Garden City CC error to put MCC up 5-0. A balk scored the sixth MCC run and an RBI-single from sophomore Markus Coronado (Irving, Texas) to give MCC a 7-0 lead.

A pair of walks, a passed ball and a sacrifice fly by Perez in the seventh gave MCC its final run of the game.

In the bottom of the ninth Garden City lead off with a walk and a hit batter then with two outs scored six runs on two hit batters, an error, a walk and a single. Sophomore Eduardo Ojeda (Coral Springs, Fla) started the inning and recorded two outs and Jordan Muschalek (Odessa, Texas) came on to pick up the save.

"For Game One of the year, we had very few mistakes, that didn't happen in the ninth inning with too many free passes and we misplayed a ball in the outfield and let them back into it, but at the end of the day Garden City has a good club and is very well coached so it's good to be able to get the win."

MCC had eight hits on the afternoon with two from Perez.

MCC picked up a game on the schedule and will go to Frank Phillips College in Texas Friday at 1 p.m. and on Saturday MCC will play a pair of games at Dodge City, starting at 11 a.m. against Highland Community College (Kansas) and against Dodge City at 3 p.m.).