Bison alum's team edges MCC men, 10-9

NORFOLK, Neb. – The McCook Community College and Northeast Community College baseball teams continued a recent tradition of slugfests Wednesday as the Hawks pulled out a 10-9 win in the bottom of the ninth inning.

A couple ninth-inning errors enabled the Hawks to score the tying and winning runs.

The win was the 10th straight for Northeast Community College in its second year of existence under Coach Marcus Clapp, a McCook High School graduate.

After playing their first 26 games on the road, the Hawks played their home-opener Sunday and are now 4-0 at home and 20-11 overall. One of those wins was a 15-10 win over MCC March 20 in Colby.

On Wednesday, Northeast scored three first-inning runs to take a brief 3-1 lead before the Indians tied it in the second on a two-run home run by sophomore Parker Kretzel (Thornton, Colo.).

MCC scored a run to take a 4-3 lead in the fifth inning on a Tyler Clark-Chiapparelli, (Austin, Texas) double and a single from Angel Mojica (Denver), but the Hawks responded with four runs in the bottom of the inning.

Trailing 7-4 in the eighth, it was the Indians who posted a five-run inning to take a 9-7 lead.

Northeast pitchers walked two of the first three MCC hitters and hit a batter to load the bases for Kade Wroot (North Platte) who singled home the first run.

A Hawk error led to the second run and a two-run single by Kaleb Taylor (McCook) put the Indians up 8-7 and a sacrifice fly put MCC up by two runs.

The Hawks used nine pitchers while the Indians used six. Freshman Victor Santiago (Caguas, Puerto Rico) pitched three scoreless, hitless innings, and freshman Yasnier Laureano (Anderson, S.C.) was the only other MCC pitcher who made it through an inning unscathed -- with one inning of work, a walk and two strikeouts.

The Hawks out-hit MCC 8-7. Clark-Chiaparrelli had a pair of doubles and Taylor had two hits and two RBIs for the Indians.

The Indians fall to 11-22 on the year and will travel to La Junta, Colo. this weekend .to take on Otero.