Garden City’s eight-run seventh inning ignites 13-8 win over MCC

The McCook Community College baseball team surrendered eight runs in the seventh inning Tuesday and lost to Garden City Community College 13-8.

MCC took a 5-0 lead after two innings, led 7-4 after five innings then gave up seven runs in the seventh inning and never recovered.

"We had a lot of good things erased by a bad inning," said MCC Coach Jon Olsen. "We just need to be better in nine-inning games -- understanding they are long games and we need to be able to be good out on the mound the whole way through."

MCC jumped out on top with a leadoff home run by sophomore Daniel Bannon (Sydney, Australia) in the first and the team added a second run on a walk, a single by freshman Ethan Murdoch (Swift Current, Saskatchewan) and two wild pitches. Freshman Oliver Davies (Sydney, Australia) singled in Murdoch with two outs to put MC up 3-0.

The hosts posted two more in the second. A leadoff walk and a double by Freshman Trent Elshire (Plattsmouth, Neb.) set up Bannon, whose RBI groundout drove home MCC's fourth run. With two outs, sophomore Zack Beatty (Maple Park, Ill.) made it a 5-0 game with an RBI single to left.

"It was good to see some good things out of some different guys," Olsen said.

Freshman starter Cade Webber (Kelowna, British Columbia) took a shutout into the fourth inning when the Broncbusters scored their first run. Garden City scored three more in the fifth to chase Webber. He went five innings, allowed six hits, walked one, allowed four earned runs and struck out eight hitters.

MCC answered in the bottom of the fifth with two runs. After a walk and a single by Beatty to lead off the inning, Davies lined a two-out single to center field and the first home came home on the fielder's error. Beatty later came home on a passed ball to give MCC a 7-4 lead.

Freshman reliever C.J. Allen (Salado, Texas) pitched a scoreless sixth but the Broncs got to him for four straight singles to start the seventh and tied the game on a wild pitch. Allen left after surrendering another hit and left the game having pitched 1.1 innings, allowing five hits, five earned runs and three strikeouts.

"I'll give them some credit they came out and got four hits in a row to start the inning then we didn't throw strikes on the pitching change," Olsen said.

Sophomore Eduardo Ojeda (Coral Springs, Fla) walked the three batters he faced and left the game down 9-7. Freshman Jelle Bing (Heerhagoaard, Netherlands) finished off the frame but not before Garden City scored three more runs on a groundout, a single and a wild pitch to take a 12-7 lead.

"Cade gave us a good start we played well for eight and a half innings," Olsen said. "We just got bit by the big inning again."

MCC got one run back in the bottom of the inning on singles from Beatty and Murdoch and an RBI-groundout with freshman Brett Cyprien (Flower Mound, Texas) batting.

Bing pitched a scoreless eighth and finished with 1.2 innings and no runs on one hit and one strikeout.

MCC got one run back in the eighth on another Cyprien RBI-groundout.

Jordan Muschalek (Odessa, Texas) pitched the ninth and gave up one run on a solo homer.

Garden City outhit MCC 13-11. Beatty led MCC with three hits. Murdoch and Davies both had two.

MCC goes to 16-17 on the season. Garden City goes to 10-18-1 on the season

MCC won the previous match this season on Feb. 7, by the score of 8-7.

This weekend MCC travels to La Junta, Colo., to face Otero Junior College (4-22, 3-15) in a pair of doubleheaders Saturday and Sunday, starting both days at 1 p.m.

MCC is 10-8 in the Empire League (Region IX).

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