Indians win opening 14-13 playoff thriller

Friday, May 8, 2026

Brent Cobb

PUEBLO, Colo. – The McCook Community College baseball team survived the first day of the Region IX tournament with a 14-13 win over Luna Community College in 11 innings at Damon Runyon Field Sports Complex.

“We did not play well by any stretch of the imagination,” said MCC Coach Jon Olsen, “But at this point it is survive and advance.”

The third-seeded Indians overcame deficits of 6-0 and 11-6 and scored the game-winner with a walk-off bases-loaded walk over the sixth-seeded Roughriders to advance to second-round action today against second-seeded Southeast Community College at 2 p.m.

Sophomore Tyler Reyburn (Frederick, Colo.) led off the bottom of the 11th with a single – his fifth hit of the game – and with one out, and bases-loaded, his high school teammate Dalton Berg drew the walk on a 3-2 count to send the Indians on in the tournament.

Freshman Jakoby Hamer (Edmonton, Alberta) hit a pair of home runs (his 15th and 16th of the season) and freshman Nolan Jackson (Grimsby, Ontario) picked up the win (7-2) in relief, pitching the final 5.2 innings.

“We had some big performances, Reyburn was great at the plate, Hamer had two really big swings and it was great to see him have those swings, and Nolan was big on the mound late for us,” said Olsen.

The team from Luna, N.M. took an early lead with a run in the first, another in the second and went up 5-0 with three runs in the third inning off MCC sophomore starter Aviv Bobrov (Shekhanya, Israel) who departed after three innings, allowing seven hits on a walk and two strikeouts.

Luna came back with a run in the fourth off sophomore reliever Tobey Cassino (Arvada, Colo.) to take a 6-0 lead.

MCC got on the scoreboard in the home-half of the fourth on a one-out walk by Berg and a two-out RBI-double by Corbin Lochhead (Vegreville, Alberta) to trail 6-1.

The Indians offense started clicking in the fifth with three runs. Reyburn hit an opposite-field, solo home run to left for the first run (his fourth of the year).

With two outs, freshman Kon Yoshimura (Nagasaki, Japan) was hit by a pitch and Hamer homered to cut the deficit to 6-4.

“I will give our guys credit we didn’t give in, I thought the fifth through the ninth innings, we made our move – it wasn’t perfect, but we were able to play catch up,” said Olsen.

Luna responded with four unearned runs in the sixth to give them a 10-4 lead with the help of two MCC errors.

“I do feel like we just gave them too many things, made a couple errors for runs, we had a couple balls to the backstop for runs, just not clean, then we had a lot of chances offensively and we just couldn’t make it happen,” said Olsen.

MCC got two runs back in the bottom of the sixth on a two-out single by Owen Weales to cut the deficit to 10-6.

Sophomore Tobey Cassino (Arvada, Colo.) pitched 2.1 innings, allowing three earned runs on four hits, three walks and three strikeouts.

The Roughriders added another run in the seventh inning aided by an MCC error to lead 11-6. Jackson came on in relief with two in the seventh.

Yoshimura was hit by a pitch to lead off the seventh inning and Hamer drew a walk. With two outs Lochhead was hit by a pitch and sophomore Hunter Southey (Auckland, New Zealand) walked with the bases loaded.

A Luna error made it an 11-8 game, Reyburn singled in two runs and Weales doubled home a run to tie the game 11-11, Reyburn tried scoring to give MCC its first lead, but he was thrown out at the plate.

Yoshimura doubled to lead off the eighth and Hamer hit his second homer of the game to give the Indians a 13-11 lead.