Conquistadores top MCC Baseball 9-4
Dodge City Community College scored four runs in the third inning and added single runs in the fifth, sixth, seventh and nine innings Tuesday to beat McCook Community College 9-4.
In a final tune-up before the season-ending Region IX home series Friday and Saturday, MCC Coach Jon Olsen pitched nine guys one inning each and had 16 more position players seeing action.
“It’s always kind of hit or miss when you throw nine guys, but we had eight pretty good innings of just no runs or one run,” said Olsen.
Freshman Elvis Conte (Fort Collins, Colo.) started on the mound for MCC and allowed a run on two walks. Kayden Frizzell (freshman, Littleton, Colo.) pitched a scoreless second allowing one hit and a walk with two strikeouts.
Dodge City got to reliver Leif Friedrich (sophomore, Surrey, British Columbia) with a four-run third inning on four hits including a two-run home run on the way to a 5-0 lead.
“They got a couple good swings there in the third inning for their big inning,” said Olsen. “They have a pretty good offensive team and I thought we had a lot of guys compete pretty hard.”
Freshman Parker Wilson (Tulsa, Okla.) pitched a scoreless fourth inning with two strikeouts.
Sophomore Maddox Shaver (Belleville, Ontario) got MCC on the scoreboard with a leadoff home run in in the bottom of the fourth inning,
Kaden Noble (freshman, Orillia, Ontario) allowed a run in the fifth on a hit and a strikeout. Freshman Julian Alvarez (Vaughan, Ontario) allowed a run in the sixth on one hit and a walk as Colby took a 7-1 lead. Freshman Landen Zehr (Kitchener, Ontario) pitched the seventh and allowed one run on two hits and a strikeout.
Colby Kaplan (freshman, Parker, Colo.) pitched the eighth inning, didn’t allow a run on one hit.
The Indians scored twice in the eighth on a leadoff single by Shaver and a double by sophomore Owen Glover (Elderslie, New South Wales). Shaver scored on an RBI groundout by freshman Dalton Berg (Frederick, Colo.). Freshman Jeff Bullock (Medicine Hat, Alberta) drove in Glover with a sacrifice fly to make it a 9-3 game.
“Offensively we put a few good swings on it, we just didn’t piece anything together really,” said Olsen.
Sophomore Jean Duran (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) relieved in the ninth and gave up a run on two hits.
Freshman Chase Williams (Brampton, Ontario) hit a one-out triple in the ninth and scored on a two-out single by freshman Corbin Lochhead (Vegreville, Alberta)
MCC was outhit 12-9. Shaver was the only player with a multi-hit game for the Indians.
Dodge City improves to 29-22 on the season. The Conquistadores take the non-conference season series 2-0, having won the matchup in Kansas 13-7 on March 11.
This was a game that was added to the schedule Monday after MCC and Colby had to postpone their scheduled Monday game in Colby.
“I am happy we were able to get the game in and Dodge City came up,” said Olsen. “We have a lot of guys that work really hard and we want to be able to play as much as they can.”
The Indians go to 26-25 on the season and focus on the final regular season games at home this weekend. MCC hosts first-place Southeast Community College in a four-game Region IX series. Doubleheaders are set to start at 2 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m. Saturday.
“We’re looking forward to the weekend and getting ready for the region tournament,” said Olsen.
Southeast leads the Empire League standings and 19-5, Northeastern Junior College is second, 16-8. Western Nebraska is third (14-10), MCC is fourth (13-11), Otero is fifth (12-12), Lamar sixth (11-13), Luna seventh (6-18) and Trinidad eighth (5-19).
The top six teams will advance to the Region IX tournament May 8-11 in Pueblo, Colo.