MCC Baseball streaks to 16th straight win with Sunday sweep over Rattlers

The McCook Community College baseball team swept two more Empire League games Sunday and extended the winning streak to 16 games. MCC opened the day with a 6-4 win then closed out the sweep with a 13-5 win in Game 2.

Sophomore Ethan Murdoch (Swift Current, Saskatchewan) went five-for-eight on the day with seven RBIs in Game 2 including a grand slam.

"It was good to finish off the weekend, and good to get the win in Game 1," said MCC Coach Jon Olsen. "It was a tight game that could've gone either way."

MCC starting pitchers Aiden Johnson (freshman Westminster, Colo.) and sophomore Owen Lester (St. Charles, Ill.) combined to pitch 11 of the 14 innings and struck out 22 Rattlers on the day. Redshirt freshman reliever Rocky Yates (Sydney, Australia) pitched the final 1.2 innings for a save in Game 1.

"Rocky did a great job of finishing it off, Aiden gave us a good start just got a little gassed, we didn't get rolling as much offensively so really good to see our pitching and defense step up for us," said Olsen. "We have to play and win close games to be able to win those later in the year."

Down 4-0 after two innings in Game 2, MCC scored three times in the third, five in the fourth and four in the fifth to outlast the Rattlers.

"We started a bit rough but from third inning on we were real good," said Olsen. "We made two or three defensive mistakes in the first two innings and Owen needed to settle in but in the third through sixth, Owen was really good and then we started putting good swings on it."

MCC improves to 24-13 on the season.

Otero goes to 11-17 overall and 7-15 in the Empire League.

In addition to winning 16 straight games, MCC has won 11 straight Empire League games. After starting the season 3-7 in Region IX play, MCC has swept consecutive series at home against Lamar (4-0), Luna (3-0) and Otero (4-0.) MCC is 14-7 in the Empire League standings.

"I'm just proud of our guys for sticking with it, these are long weekends and we've stuck with it, but we have some tough tests the next few weeks and we'll be on the road a lot," said Olsen.

This week MCC travels to Colby, Kan. Wednesday for a nine-inning non-conference game there starting at 3 p.m.

On Friday MCC travels to Scottsbluff for a three-game series with Empire League North opponent Western Nebraska. The first game of that series is set for 2 p.m. (CT) Friday with a doubleheader Saturday starting at 1 p.m. (CT).

Only five home games remain on the schedule including April 11 and 18 against Colby then a series-ending series April 29-30 against Western Nebraska.

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

GAME 1 – McCook CC 6, Otero JC 4: The home team broke out on top with two first-inning runs. Michael Quick (Oshawa, Ontario) led off the first inning with an infield single. After one out, MCC got consecutive singles by Ethan Murdoch, Josh Maysonave (Austin, Texas), and Abel Reyes (sophomore, Puerto Caimito, Panama) to take a 2-0 lead.

In the fourth after a leadoff walk by Reyes, freshman Zeke Minic (Thornton, Colo.) doubled the MCC lead with a two-run homer run, his 10^th of the year. With two outs MCC added two more runs on a walk by Tyus Chudomelka (Bellevue), an RBI-double by Quick and an RBI-single by Alliskair Descartes (sophomore, Thornton, Colo.) to give MCC a 6-0 lead.

Aiden Johnson took a shutout two outs into the fifth inning before a two-run homer cut the lead to 6-2. He went five innings, allowed three hits, two earned runs, one walk and he struck out nine.

Freshman Ethan Badcock (Adelade, Australia) came on in relief in the sixth inning and surrendered a pair of leadoff singles, then struck out a hitter before walking a batter to load the bases. Rocky Yates (redshirt freshman, Sydney, Australia) relieved and after surrendering an unearned run got out of the inning with a 6-4 lead and closed out the seventh allowing a walk then retired the final three batters of the inning. He went 1.2 innings, walked one and struck out two.

MCC outhit Otero 8-5 with two-hit games from Quick and Murdoch

GAME 2 –McCook CC 13, Otero JC 5: Otero scored two runs in the first and added two more in the second to take a 4-0 lead which lasted until the third inning when MCC scored three times.

Owen Lester surrendered a pair of runs in the first and second innings and came back to post four straight shutout innings to finish with the win, allowing three hits, five walks and he struck out 13 batters over six innings.

Freshman Blake Dale (Riverton, Wyo.) led off the MCC third with a double, Michael Quick singled him in and after a single by Alliskair Descartes, Ethan Murdoch delivered a two-run single.

Down 4-3 in the fourth, sophomore Riley Watson (Sydney, Australia) led off with a single and after a fielder's choice and a walk and an out, Murdoch drove in the tying run on a single. MCC went up 8-4 on a hit batter and two Otero errors. Dale led off the MCC fifth with a double. After an error and a walk, Murdoch powered a grand-slam home run to right field to put MCC up 12-4.

Sophomore Jelle Bing (Heerhugowaard, Netherlands) pitched the seventh and allowed a run on one hit.

MCC had 12 hits in the game with three by Murdoch and Quick.