MCC Baseball completes sweep over Luna with Sunday wins

The McCook Community College baseball team completed a four-game sweep Sunday at home over Luna Community College winning a doubleheader 15-2, 13-0.

“It was just a really good day of baseball today,” said MCC Coach Jon Olsen. “I thought we did a great job of just going out and doing our job.”

MCC slugged four home runs in Game 1 including two by Cory Wouters and sophomore Jereniel Herrera tossed his first complete game striking out seven in a game shortened to five innings by the 10-run rule.

“We pitched it really good, and Game 1 we really swung it well,” said Olsen.

Wouters picked up the win on the mound in Game 2 with 13 strikeouts in five innings and freshman Nate Hutchison hit a grand slam in the seven-run fifth inning.

“It took us a minute to get going offensively in the second game, but Cory held them down until we got going,” said Olsen. “He and Ethan Badcock really had good stuff today.”

Luna falls to 1-19 in the region and 3-41 overall.

MCC improves to 16-4 in the Empire League and 24-19 overall.

After a pair of mid-week, non-conference games Tuesday at Colby and Wednesday at Hastings, MCC has a key Region IX series against Western Nebraska. The split four-game series begins with a doubleheader at Scottsbluff Friday at 2 p.m. then concludes Sunday in McCook starting at 1 p.m.

“We’ve put ourselves in position for a big couple weekends before the tournament so we need to keep working to peak at the right time,” said Olsen.

Southeast Community College leads the standings at 18-2, MCC is second at 16-4, Western Nebraska third at 12-8, Otero fourth at 9-7, Northeastern Junior College fifth at 8-8. Lamar sixth at 7-13, Trinidad State seventh at 5-15 and Luna is eighth at 1-19.

After the Western Nebraska series, MCC has one Region IX series left and that will be at Beatrice May 3-4 against Southeast CC.

The top six region teams in the standings will advance to the post-season tournament in Colorado Springs May 9-12 in a single game, double-elimination tournament. The top two seeds will earn a first-round bye with the third seed playing the sixth seed and the fourth seed playing the fifth seed.

All the latest information for MCC baseball including up-to-date schedule and changes as well as statistics, rosters and photos can be found on the MCC Athletics website, www.mccindians.com

 

GAME 1 – McCook CC 15, Luna CC 2: MCC scored a pair of first-inning runs on a triple by sophomores Will Edwards (Sydney, Australia) and a double by Jackson Yeager (Omaha).

After Luna picked up a run in the second MCC scored six times in the bottom of the inning to take an 8-1 lead. Sophomore Jake Quinlivan (Sydney, Australia) hit a two-run home run, freshman Cory Wouters (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) hit a three-run homer, and sophomore Luke Bies (La Vista) hit a solo shot.

Luna got a solo homer in the top of the third but MCC scored four more in the bottom of the inning. Quinlivan was hit by a pitch to lead off the frame. Sophomore Michael Quick (Oshawa, Ontario) doubled and freshman Nathan Hutchison (Riverton, Wyo.) singled in Quinlivan. Edwards had an RBI-groundout to put MCC up 10-2 and with two outs Wouters blasted a two-run home run to center to make it 12-2. It was his second of the game and sixth homer of the season.

MCC capped the scoring with three runs in the fourth on back-to-back RBI-doubles from freshman Maddox Shaver (Belleville Ontario) and Quinlivan and scored the final run of the game on a Luna error.

Jereniel Herrera (Panama City, Panama) improves to 3-1 on the season, allowing six hits, two walks, two earned runs and he struck out seven.

MCC had 12 hits in four innings of at bats and had three by Wouters and two each by Quinlivan and Yeager.

 

GAME 2 – McCook CC 13, Luna CC 0: The Indians broke open a scoreless tied with three runs in the fourth inning. Following a Roughrider error, Jackson Yeager singled, freshman Owen Glover (Elderslice, New South Wales) tripled in two and Jake Quinlivan drove in Glover on a sacrifice fly to put MCC up 3-0.

Starting pitcher Cory Wouters went five innings, allowed one hit, walked five and struck out 13.

MCC took charge of the contest scoring seven runs in the fifth inning. Yeager began the scoring with an RBI-single, Glover drove in two on a double and Luke Bies drove in a run with a single to put MCC up 6-0. After a hit batter and a walk, Nate Hutchison hit a grand slam homer to make it a 10-0 game.

The Indians added three more in the sixth inning on singles by Glover and Dale, a wild pitch and a two-run single by Michael Quick.

Sophomore Ethan Badcock (Adelaide, Australia) pitched two clean innings to finish the game with four strikeouts.

Glover led the 10-hit MCC attack with three hits and three driven in. Yeager and Bies both had two hits.