Indians drop two games in Texas triangular

MELISSA, Texas – The McCook Community College baseball team opened Friday with a 6-5 loss to Garden City Community College then fell to Northern Oklahoma College-Tonkawa 13-3. The games were played at the Z-Plex Sports Village in the Dallas area. NOC-Tonkawa beat Garden City 8-0 in the middle game of the triangular.

In Game 1, MCC came back from a 3-0 deficit to take a 4-3 lead in the sixth inning but couldn’t close out the game in the seventh.

“We should have put the game in the bag in Game 1, we were up in the seventh with and out and no one on is a tough one to swallow,” said MCC Coach Jon Olsen.

In Game 2, the 9-0 Mavericks scored 11 unanswered runs after the second inning to start the season 10-0.

“Game 2 was a different story, again we gave too many free passes against a good team, we just didn’t play clean,” said Olsen.

The 0-4 Indians will face Garden City (4-2) again Saturday morning with a 10 a.m. game, this one at Celina High School in Celina, Texas. MCC will play NOC-Tonkawa (10-0) following the first game Saturday.

“We put some better swings on today but just not consistent enough, tomorrow is another day and look forward to getting back out there and competing,” said Olsen.

Up-to-date information about MCC baseball including livestream links, schedule, statistics, rosters, photos and more can be found on the MCC Athletics website, www.mccindians.com 

GAME 1 – Garden City CC 6, McCook CC 5: Sophomore Leif Friedrich (Surrey, British Columbia) started the game on the mound for the Indians and went four innings, allowing two hits, two walks and an earned run in the fourth. He struck out six hitters. Freshman Kaden Noble (Orillia, Ontario) relieved in the fifth and gave up a single and walk as the Broncbusters scored a run on a stolen base, a passed ball and an RBI single to take a 3-0 lead.

With MCC trailing 3-0 in the bottom of the six inning, sophomore Cory Wouters (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) doubled home a run and freshman Dalton Berg (Frederick, Colo.) tied the game on a two-run home run. The Indians kept the inning going with a single by Carter Smith (Ottawa, Canada), a hit batter and an RBI-single off the bat of Tyler Reyburn (Frederick, Colo.) to put MCC up 4-3.

Garden City responded with a pair of runs in the seventh on three doubles and a single to lead 6-4. Knoble pitched 2.1 innings, allowing three earned runs on two walks and four hits, he struck out four.

Freshman Julian Alvarez (Vaughan, Ontario) pitched the final two-thirds of the seventh, allowing two hits, one run, no walks and a strikeout.

MCC’s first two batters in the seventh inning reached on a walk and catcher’s interference. With one out sophomore Owen Glover (Elderslie, New South Wales) drove in a run on a sacrifice fly but MCC left the tying run on second base.

“We didn’t walk them or make errors, they got the hits when they needed too, we did a good job of battling back to take the lead just couldn’t close it out,” said Olsen.

MCC has six hits in the game with two from Wouters.

GAME 2 – Northern Oklahoma College-Tonkawa 13, McCook CC 3: The Indians got a two-run homer by Cory Wouters to take a 2-0 lead in the first. NOC-Tonkawa got new life in the bottom of the inning after MCC starting pitcher Tait Anderson (Auckland, New Zealand) struck out the first three hitters, but the final batter reached first base on a dropped third strike. The next batter hit a two-run homer to tie the game. Anderson ended up walking three and striking out four in the inning.

Owen Glover led off the second with a solo-home run to put MCC up 3-2 but the Mavericks tied the game on an infield groundout.

Anderson pitched two innings, allowed one earned run with three walks and five strikeouts. He was followed on the mound by three more freshmen: Landon Molloy (Parker, Colo.) who pitched two-thirds of an inning and allowed four hits and two walks leading to six runs; Colby Kaplan (Parker, Colo.) who pitched 2.2 innings and allowed three hits, two walks, four runs and he struck out three; Corbin Lochhead (Vegreville, Alberta) who pitched the final one-third on an inning, and allowed a walk and a hit.

The Indians issued eight walks and hit two Mavericks in the 5.2 innings.

MCC had two hits after the second and finished with five – including the two by Wouters.