Storm Baseball opens series with 13-8 win over MCC

BEATRICE – A 6-2 McCook Community College lead disappeared Sunday with a costly sixth inning as the Southeast Community College baseball team went on to a 13-5 win in the opening game of a three-game series.

 "Talk about watching a game fall apart right in front of your eyes, we worked so hard for five innings to build a lead has some really good AB's and Max Mrakovcic was throwing well," said MCC Coach Jon Olsen.

MCC took a 2-0 lead in the second on singles by Riley Watson (Sydney, Australia), Kade-Poteet-Herrera (Pueblo, Colo.), a double steal and a two-out double from Daniel Bannon (Sydney, Australia).

MCC starter Max Mrakovcic (Sydney, Australia) had allowed just two runs before the fateful sixth and those two runs came in the third when he yielded a single, a sacrifice bunt, an errant pickoff attempt, a walk and a wild pitch to tie the game at 2-2.

In the MCC fifth Caleb Eiguren, (Broomfield, Colo.), Ethan Murdoch (Swift Current, Saskatchewan) and Watson all singled to load the bases to start the inning. With one out Elijah Munoz (Big Spring, Texas) singled home Eiguren and Watson to give MCC the 4-2 lead. In the sixth inning the lead went to 6-2 on a two-run home run by Murdoch.

The first eight Storm batters reached base in the sixth inning on just one hit, two hit batters , one catcher's interference call and four bases on balls to take a 7-6 lead. After two outs, (the second brought home the Storm's eight run on a sacrifice fly). Southeast came up with a two-run double.

Mrakovcic lasted two batters into the sixth, allowed three earned runs, three hits and struck out 10 hitters.

"You don't have to even be that knowledgeable about baseball to know if you give up seven free passes in a row you're going to give up a ton of runs and that's exactly what happened," Olsen said. "It's so disappointing."

Owen Lester (St. Charles, Ill.) came on in relief of Mrakovcic and gave up three runs on one hit and three walks.

MCC scored a run in the seventh on a two-out RBI single from Markus Coronado (Irving, Texas) but the Storm put the game away with three in the eighth. Mikey Acierno (Thornton, Colo.) pitched a scoreless seventh, but the Storm got to reliever Jelle Bing (Heerhagoaard, Netherlands) for three more runs in the eighth on five hits.

MCC's final run came on an RBI-double from Bannon in the ninth.

Watson led MCC with four hits on the afternoon, Bannon had three, and MCC got two-hit games from Eiguren, Murdoch and Munoz.

 "Tomorrow is a new day and we just have to back on it and see if we can put a couple good games together," Olsen said.

The two teams conclude the three-game set Monday with a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m.

MCC goes to 10-10 on the season and 5-3 in Empire League Play.

Sunday's win was the eighth straight for Southeast CC. The Storm improve to 12-4 overall and 5-0 in in Empire League play.

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