Mother Nature wreaks havoc on MCC baseball schedule

Steve Kodad/McCook Daily Gazette McCook Community College pitcher Tyler Perry delivers a pitch to home plate Thursday afternoon at the Jaycees Sports Complex. Perry is a freshman from Lincoln. The Indians held an intrasquad scrimmage Thursday. MCC's games scheduled Friday and Saturday, March 19-20, against Southwest Iowa C.C. have been postponed due to wintry weather in the area.

Nebraska athletic teams at all levels are at the mercy of Mother Nature during the early spring season.

The McCook Community College men's baseball team has not won a game yet this year. The Indians are 0-12 after suffering four close losses in last weekend's road trip to southeast Colorado, and 0-13 against Mother Nature.

MCC head coach Jon Olsen said his team has had 13 games postponed or cancelled early this season due to wet weather.

Steve Kodad/McCook Daily Gazette McCook Community College first baseman Jordan Krenik eyes the baseball as he makes a routine catch on a fly ball Thursday, March 18, in the MCC intrasquad scrimmage at the Jaycees Sports Complex. Krenik is a freshman from Lakewood, Colo.

"We're just trying to scrap to get some games," Olsen said. "We can't get in a rhythm. That's part of it. We haven't played 13 games that were on our schedule, now we've got a lot of those games rescheduled. We will play a lot through April and the early part of May."

The Indians held an intrasquad scrimmage Thursday, March 18, at the Jaycees Sports Complex. MCC had games scheduled Friday and Saturday against Southeast Iowa Community College. Olsen looked at the weekend weather forecast, and rather than having the Iowa squad come all the way to McCook and get snowed out, the teams decided to postpone the contests.

As of Thursday night, the MCC coach said he was working to possibly get Southwest Iowa to come to town Sunday for a 1 p.m. double-header and Monday for a single game also starting at 1 p.m. If the Iowa squad couldn't get here, Olsen said he would attempt to find a replacement opponent for the Indians for Sunday and Monday.

Four close losses

In last weekend's Colorado trip, McCook dropped a 4-3, 9-inning decision at Trinidad in Saturday's first game, followed by a 4-3 decision in 7 innings in the nightcap. The Indians played at Lamar, Colo. Sunday and lost by scored of 3-1 and 1-0.

"Those are tough losses," Olsen said. "I thought we had our chances in a few games. They are good teams, there's no doubt. Lamar's in the top 25 right now. Trinidad won our league last year. We've just got to be better to get over the hump.

"We just haven't gotten a rhythm offensively. We pitched really well. There hasn't been a game this year that we haven't been in. Our worst loss was 10-5. We were winning 5-4 in the bottom of the eighth in that game."

In Saturday's opening game at Trinidad, Olsen said his team left the bases loaded in three separate innings.

"We've got to get a little more confidence going and we have to do a little better job offensively," he said. "The arms (pitchers) we saw against Lamar were both good arms. We just didn't do enough offensively. I think we only made one error over the weekend. We can really pitch and play defense. We're in every game, but we've just got to learn to win."

Coach busy rescheduling games

The MCC coach will keep busy over the coming weeks working to reschedule a big share of the postponed games. The McCook schedule originally had 56 games, and Olsen is hopeful that he can get at least 52 to 54 games for his squad after working on rescheduling.

"We'll probably play seven eight games a week in April," he said. "We'll have to be ready to go. Hopefully that will get us in a rhythm."

Olsen added a double-header with York College at the Jaycees Sports Complex Tuesday, March 30. A double-header at Dodge City, Kan.) C.C. has been rescheduled for Saturday, May 1 at 1 p.m.