Runnin’ Lopes beat up on MCC baseball in Saturday sweep

LAMAR – The McCook Community College baseball team lost a pair of Region IX games Saturday falling to Lamar Community College 9-2, 18-1.

"We did not play good at all, in all three phases," said MCC Coach Jon Olsen.

On the day Lamar pitching limited MCC's offense to seven hits, two walks while striking out 17 MCC batters in 12 innings.

"I'll give their guys credit on the mound, they got after us good," Olsen said of the Lamar pitching staff. "I haven't seen our team have as many cumulative bad at bats in years. We just couldn't put anything together, we struck out a ton."

With the Saturday sweep, Lamar improved to 10-21 on the season and 7-5 in Empire League play.

MCC goes to 11-13 overall and 6-6 in the Empire League.

The two teams are back at it for another doubleheader Sunday at 1 p.m.

"We just need to be a lot better than we were today," Olsen said.

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

GAME 1 – Lamar CC 9, McCook CC 2: The Lopes took a 5-0 lead after scoring a pair of runs and three more in the third off MCC starter Max Mrakovcic (Sydney, Australia).

MCC scored its only runs of the game in the fourth inning. Sophomore Caleb Eiguren, (Broomfield, Colo.) lashed a two-out single and freshman Ethan Murdoch (Swift Current, Saskatchewan) followed with a two-run home run.

Mrakovcic went five innings and allowed six earned runs on six hits and walked a batter. He hit four batters and struck out eight.

Lamar went up 7-2 with two runs in the fifth and then two more in the sixth off freshman reliever C.J. Allen (Salado, Texas), who walked two, and allowed two hits and two earned runs in his inning of work.

The MCC offense was held to four hits on the day with two from Murdoch, the single by Eiguren and a double off the bat of sophomore Jordan Demarce (Las Vegas).

GAME 2 – Lamar CC 18, McCook CC 1: Lamar scored three runs in the first inning and three more in the second off MCC starter Cade Webber (Kelowna, British Columbia) who allowed three hits and walked six in his 1.2 innings of work. He left the game in favor of freshman Rylan Wallingford (Fort Calhoun, Neb.) who came on to finish off the second inning striking the first batter he faced.

MCC scored its only run of the game in the third when freshman Josh Maysonave (Austin, Texas) powered a solo home run to center field.

Wallingford held the 6-1 Lamar lead until the Lopes exploded for 12 runs in the fourth inning.

MCC was out-hit 13-3 in the five-inning game with two MCC hits coming from Maysonave and the other from sophomore Markus Coronado (Irving, Texas.).