MCC Baseball opens post-season play with 12-2 win over Lamar

The McCook Community College baseball team opened up Region IX post-season play Friday with a 12-2 win over Lamar Community College in eight innings. MCC can secure a berth into the Region IX final four tournament with a win against Lamar Saturday in the best-of-three game series. The teams will play a game at 1 p.m. and another game after that if necessary.  

"Obviously it's good to win Game 1 in a three-game series," said MCC Coach Jon Olsen. "The job is definitely not finished. We always talk about playing the game in front of us and we were able to do that today."

MCC pounded out 19 hits in the game including nine hits from the seventh, eighth and ninth players in the batting order. Catcher Zeke Minic (Thornton, Colo.) went three-for-five in the No. 7 slot with a pair of doubles. Sophomore Daegen Morcom (Winnipeg, Manitoba) went four-for-five with four RBIs in the No. 8 slot and sophomore Tyus Chudomelka (Bellevue) went two-for-three in the No. 9 position with an RBI. Add leadoff hitter Michael Quick (Oshawa, Ontario) into the mix with his three hits and that part of the batting order was productive.

"It took us a little to get started offensively but we got some really big swings from Zeke, Daegan, Ty and Quick early which really picked us up," Olsen said.

MCC also got production from the third and fourth place hitters in Josh Maysonave (Austin, Texas) and Ethan Murdoch (Swift Current, Saskatchewan) with both players hitting late home runs.

Lamar made things interesting early on as Brian Ledezmo hit a solo home run to lead off the game against MCC starter Myles Chabi (Sydney, Australia), but the freshman was able to keep the Running Lopes off the scoreboard for the rest of his outing.

Trailing 1-0 in the third inning, MCC took the lead for good as Minic led off with a double and scored on a sacrifice fly by Chudomelka. With two outs freshman Quick tripled and later scored on a wild pitch to give MCC a 2-1 lead.

Morcom and Chudomelka hit back-to-back leadoff singles in the fifth inning and both scored on a single by Quick to put MCC up 4-1.

In the sixth Minic doubled and scored on a Morcom single to make it a 5-1 game.

Chabi left after six innings, allowing the one earned run on six hits, one walk and five strikeouts. He was relieved by sophomore Mikey Acierno (Thornton, Colo.).

"We obviously got a great start from Myles, he gave us six good ones and got a little gassed, Mikey came in and was really good as well," Olsen said. "We defended the field for the most part and threw strikes which is the recipe for keeping runs down."

Sophomore Josh Maysonave (Austin, Texas) hit a solo home run in the seventh, his 12^th of the year and Morcom singled home a run to give MCC a 7-1 lead.

MCC put the game away with five runs in the eighth to win on the 10-run rule. Quick and sophomore Alliskair Descartes (Thornton, Colo.) singled in front of an Ethan Murdoch home run – his 17^th of the season. Morcom ended the game with a two-run double.

Acierno allowed one run in his two innings of work, allowing three hits and striking out three.

In addition to multi-hit games from Minic, Morcom, Chudomelka and Quick, MCC also got two-hit games from Descartes, and freshman Jason Serafinchon (Spruce Grove, Alberta).

Lamar goes to 15-40 on the season and finds itself in a back-to-back win-or-go home games Saturday.

MCC improves to 34-20 on the season.

"We need to come out with same mindset tomorrow and hopefully have a good day," Olsen said.

For all the up-to-date information on MCC baseball this season including up-to-date scheduling changes, statistics, rosters and photos, please visit the official website of MCC Athletics at mccindians.com

REGION IX TOURNAMENT

CROSS-DIVISION PLAYOFFS

Best-Of-Three Series

THURSDAY

Otero JC 13, Northeastern JC 3, 7-innings, (at Otero)

FRIDAY

Northeastern JC at Otero, 1 p.m., 3 p.m.

McCook 12, Lamar 2 (at McCook)

Western Nebraska 24, Trinidad State 12, (at Trinidad)

SATURDAY

Lamar at McCook, 1 p.m.; (4 p.m. if necessary)

Western Nebraska at Trinidad State, Noon (MT); (3 p.m. if necessary)

Northeastern JC at Otero, TBA