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MCC baseball team 2-1 in tripleheader
The McCook Community College Indians got back on the winning track yesterday as they took two of three games from Northeastern Junior College at the Jaycee Sports complex Tuesday afternoon.
In a rare triple header, which was rescheduled due to the snow in Colorado over the weekend the Indians took advantage of the extra two home games as they played well all 21 innings yesterday afternoon.
The Indians were scheduled for just a single 9 inning game in McCook on Tuesday but when the snow storm hit Sterling Colo., the Plainsmen could not play at home so the doubleheader from Sterling on Monday was moved to McCook.
In game won the Indians started the day with a 10-5 victory, McCook jumped on top early with leads of 3-1 after the first 5-3 after the second, and 10-3 after five innings, before closing out the 10-5 victory.
Sophomore right hander Austin Parker got the victory on the mound improving to 4-4 on the year. Parker threw six strong innings giving up four runs only two earned, while scattering nine hits, striking out three and walking two. Evan Bumgarner came in and threw the seventh allowing one run on no hits, striking out one and walking three.
Offensively the Indians 11 hit attack was lead by sophomore centerfielder Josh McKinney who was 2-4 with a double and 2 RBI, freshman third baseman Tyler Vessey 2-4 with an RBI and two runs scored, sophomore right fielder Taylor Trotter 2-4 with three RBIs and a run scored, and sophomore left fielder Pat Knabe who delivered a key blow a bases-loaded three-RBI double in the fourth inning, freshman shortstop Lars Trizila also added two singles in the game.
In Game 2, freshman Jesse Zeller got his first start of the year and was a tough luck loser dropping the 1-0 decision, Zeller's only run came on a fourth inning opposite field home run, but that would be all NJC would need as they fell 1-0.
NJC left hander Matt Klein won his second one run game of the week against the Indians. Last Friday Klein beat the Indians 2-1 at NJC, in a game in which the Indians lead 1-0 going into the bottom of the seventh, before NJC scored two to come back and win.
"Tip your hat to their left hander he pitched two really good games against us in the last four days, although Andre O'Conner pitched a great game at NJC Friday. O'Conner threw a complete game giving up just the two runs in the bottom of the seventh on four hits, while striking out five and walking no one in the tough luck loss.
The Indians only managed five hits in Game 2 -- all singles, no one having more than one hit.
In Game 3, the Indians capped the day with a 3-2 victory. Freshman right hander Lars Trizila got his second start of the season, and his first conference start and picked up his first win of the year improving to 1-1, as he threw a complete game four hitter giving up two runs only one earned as he struck out three and walked only two.
Things got a little scary in the seventh NJC's leadoff batter singled advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt, then with one out advanced to third on a ground ball to second.
Then with two outs Trizila struck out the final NJC batter with a curve ball in the dirt, that bounced away from freshman catcher Zach Johnstone, but Johnstone made a great block and recovery to throw the runner out at first to end the game.
Trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the sixth the Indians loaded the bases on a hit batter, a single and a walk, then capitalized on two NJC mistakes, first with the bases loaded the NJC closer balked bringing in the tying run, then a passed ball brought home the winning run for the Indians.
Offensively the Indians collected seven hits with Chris Kalk going 3-for-3 with an RBI on the day.
"It was a long day for us but a good day, we fought hard and played well all day, it would have been easy to fold at the end of the day but we battled to score two runs in the sixth inning of the third game to get the victory, I was really proud of our effort."
I want to give a huge thanks to Steve and the city, they put in a lot of time and extra work to get the field ready to go, since NJC still had five-foot snow drifts in their outfield we had to get our games in at McCook and it wasn't easy to get our field ready, we had a ton of water on it, and they worked hard to get it done."