MCC Baseball drops 6-2 game against Northeast CC Hawks

WAYNE – For the third straight game, the McCook Community College baseball team faced an opponent at a neutral field because of weather issues. On Tuesday MCC and Northeast Community College went to Wayne to play at the college field there. Northeast CC beat MCC 6-2 for the Hawks' 15th straight win under former MCC assistant Marcus Clapp.

 "It was just kind of another weird day playing-wise," said MCC Coach Jon Olsen. "We moved our game to Wayne State due to field conditions in Norfolk, as the field unthawed in Norfolk it just got less playable so we made the decision to switch locations."

The coaches also agreed to shorten the game to seven innings.

MCC's scheduled home doubleheader Sunday against Trinidad State was shifted to Lamar, Colo. to take advantage of warmer weather there.

Despite all the changes, on Tuesday MCC jumped out in the first inning with the lead. Marcus Coronado (Irving, Texas) lined a one-out double to right and scored on a double off the bat of Zack Beatty (Maple Park, Ill.)

Northeast CC, which moved from No. 18 to No. 15 in Monday's NJCAA Division II Rankings, came back to score four unearned runs in the bottom of the first inning

"We just made a couple costly errors in the first inning leading to a four spot and that was basically the game," Olsen said.

The Hawks added another run in the second on a single and a two-out triple.

Freshman Jelle Bing (Heerhagoaard, Netherlands) was the hard-luck starter on the mound for MCC. He went two innings, allowed just one earned run on five hits and no walks. Sophomore Jordan Muschalek (Odessa, Texas) came on for two innings of scoreless relief, striking out three.

"I thought we had some guys compete well on the mound we just weren't able to get anything strung together offensively, we will try and take the good out of the day and move on," Olsen said.

MCC scored a run in the third when freshman Ethan Murdoch (Swift Current, Saskatchewan) doubled home Beatty, who reached on a two-out single.

Sophomore Eduardo Ojeda (Coral Springs, Fla) pitched a scoreless fifth and Owen Lester (sophomore, St. Charles, Ill.) pitched a scoreless sixth inning.

Northeast outhit MCC 7-6 with Beatty the only player with two hits for MCC.

The Hawks improve to 15-1 on the season.

MCC goes to 10-9 and the team is scheduled to play a key Region IX series in Beatrice against Southeast Community College this weekend. The Storm come into the three-game series having won their last seven straight and are 11-4 overall. They swept Luna Community College in a four game Region IX series last weekend at home.

The Storm lead the Empire League (Region IX) North Division with a 4-0 record Western Nebraska is second at 3-1, MCC third at 5-2 and Northeastern Junior College is fourth at 4-3.

"We obviously have another region series this weekend which are always huge," Olsen said. "I've been super pleased with the mentality we've taken into our two region weekend series so far and hopefully we can continue that, we know how important each weekend is."

The series is scheduled to begin Saturday at 2 p.m. and a Sunday doubleheader but weather may once again affect the weekend's games.

Olsen said he and the Southeast coach will monitor the weather and look at the best options for getting the three games in.

For all the up-to-date information on MCC baseball this season including, schedule changes, statistics, rosters and photos, please visit the official website of MCC Athletics at: https://mccookcc.prestosports.com/landing/index