Lamar ends MCC baseball season with series clincher

LAMAR, Colo. – The Lamar Community College baseball team put an end to the McCook Community College baseball season, taking the third game of the Region IX playoff series Saturday, 16-13.

After losing the first game of the series 8-5 Friday, MCC won the second game 11-3 to force the Saturday game in the best-of-three series.

MCC had leads of 2-0, and 7-6 and then came back from being down 13-7 to make things interesting in the final two innings.

"Our guys fought hard to the end," said MCC Coach Jon Olsen. "I can't fault the effort, we just got bit by the long ball in our two losses this weekend."

Lamar hit seven homers in the win Saturday and four in the Game 1 win Friday.

MCC's Zach Beatty, hit two home runs on Saturday to give him 24 for the season, which would give him the most in the nation, pending the other weekend games. Derek Williams of Mineral Area had 23 home runs with two games remaining. One player has 22, one has 21 and two players have 20 home runs.

"I just want to thank our guys for all the work they put in," Olsen said. "It's hard to understand the commitment unless someone's been through it, it's not easy and I respect our group a great deal."

MCC finishes the season 29-30.

Lamar improves to 20-38 and they will advance to the Region IX final-four tournament in Colorado Springs along with Southeaster Junior College, Trinidad State and Otero Junior College.

MCC opened the day Saturday scoring twice in the first inning. Daniel Bannon led off the first inning with a single and scored on a single by Riley Watson (Sydney, Australia), a Lamar led to MCC's second run.

The Lopes scored five runs in the bottom of the first on a two-run and a three-run home run off MCC starter Mikey Acierno (freshman, Thornton, Colo.).

MCC tied the game in the second 5-5 on a two-out, three-run home run by Zack Beatty (sophomore, Maple Park, Ill.) and then took a brief lead in the third on back-to-back doubles by Watson and Oliver Davies (Sydney, Australia). Lamar tied the game with a home run in the bottom of the inning and MCC responded to claim a 7-6 lead in the fourth on an RBI-single by Josh Maysonave (Austin, Texas).

Lamar took the lead for good with a pair of runs in the fourth and added to the 8-7 lead with two two-run homers and a solo shot in the fifth to go up 13-7.

That score held until the MCC eighth when a three-run Beatty home run cut the deficit in half but Lamar scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the inning.

In the MCC ninth, a bases-loaded single by sophomore Jordan DeMarce (Las Vegas) plated two and a sacrifice fly by Bannon capped the scoring.

MCC had 10 hits with two each by Bannon, Markus Coronado (Irving, Texas), Beatty and Watson.

Five MCC pitchers saw action and all five gave up at least one earned run: Acierno, Jordan Muschalek (Odessa, Texas), Cade Webber (Kelowna, British Columbia), Alex Lozada (Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico) and Eduardo Ojeda (Coral Springs, Fla.)

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 mccindians.com