Indians hold off Trojans to win home-opener 8-6

Indians hold off Trojans to win home-opener 8-6

The McCook Community College baseball team fought off Colby Tuesday to win the 2020 home opener at the Jaycees Sports Complex, 8-6.

"I felt like we made strides for the first eight innings, played a really nice game, we had a good practice yesterday and got a few things addressed," said MCC Coach Jon Olsen. "We carried ourselves a lot better on the field and it carried over for us to play a little cleaner on defense."

The Indians overcame a 3-1 deficit and scored five runs in the fourth inning, added two more in the seventh and held off a late three-run rally by the Trojans in the ninth.

"I wasn't extremely pleased with the ninth inning, we really need to learn how to close out games, it's been a little bit of an issue, but it's also the hardest inning in baseball to close out," Olsen said. "We will keep working on getting it done, if we can put a complete game together we have a chance to be pretty tough."

Trevor Pacheco (sophomore, Pueblo, Colo.) drove in the first run of the game in the bottom of the first with an RBI-groundout to support starting pitcher Mitchell Driver (freshman, Sydney, Australia) who went three innings allowing one run and three hits while striking out two.

Austin Mathews (sophomore Alvin, Texas) came on in the fourth when Colby scored twice on a Zach Olson home run to take a 3-1 lead. Mathews allowed two hits, a walk and a strikeout in his inning of work.

The Indians were able to regain the lead for good in the bottom of the fourth scoring five runs on three singles, a walk, a hit batter, a Colby error, a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly. Mark Zhang (sophomore, Nicholls, Australia) delivered a two-run pinch hit single to tie the game at 3-3. MCC added runs on the wild pitch and a sacrifice fly by sophomore Pedro Perez (Cidra, Puerto Rico Baseball Academy).

Connor McGonigal (sophomore, Omaha Burke High School) came on to pitch in the Colby fifth and held the Trojans off the scoreboard in his four innings of work, allowing three hits and two walks while striking out four.

Caleb Eiguren (freshman, Westminster, Colo.) put the Indians up 8-3 with a two-run double in the eighth inning.

Troy Shepherd (freshman, McDowell, N.C.) pitched the ninth inning but was able to wiggle out of the inning with the tying runs on base. He gave up two hits and two earned runs while walking three.

Colby out-hit MCC 10-5, but the Indians made their hits count. Pacheco had two hits for the Indians. The other three came on the RBI pinch-hit single by Zhang, and a single by Kade Wroot (sophomore, North Platte) in front of the RBI double by Eiguren in the seventh inning.

MCC improves to 5-4 on the season. The Indians hit the road for the Empire League (Region IX) opener in Lamar, Colo. taking on the Runnin' Lopes (2-5) in a three-game series with a single game Saturday and two games Sunday.

After that, the Indians are home for six straight games starting Feb. 26 against Garden City (3 p.m.), continuing with a three-game weekend series with Otero Feb. 29 and March 1, a mid-week game against Northeast Community College March 4 (2 p.m.) and a three-game weekend series with Lamar March 6-7.

You can stay up to date with all MCC Indian Athletics including, scheduling changes, live-streaming games, news, photo galleries, schedules and more at MCC Indians Athletics web page at:
https://mccindians.com/index.aspx?tab=baseball&path=baseball

If you can't make it to the next MCC home watch it live at: https://mccindians.com/sports/2016/11/10/tw.aspx?tab=tribewatch

For more photos from the game, please visit the MCC Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/MPCCMcCook/