Thursday, May 10, 2007

WNCC baseball team wins opener over Otero

LAMAR, Colo.Western Nebraska Community College’s Eneldis Vazquez came off the bench and delivered a pinch-hit single to lift the Cougars to a thrilling 4-3 win over Otero Junior College in the first round of the Region IX baseball tournament Thursday.

Vazquez’ came in with the bases juiced in the bottom of the ninth inning and delivered a single to score Marco Moreno from third for the game-winner. Vazquez, though, was just one of the Cougars’ outstanding performances. The others were pitchers Chris Cuadra and Dan Bauer.

WNCC coach Mike Jones said Cuadra had a no-hitter going through four innings before giving up his first hit in the fifth. Cuadra was then rouged up with three runs in the seventh as the Rattlers tied the score. Cuadra finished the game with four strikeouts before he was pulled for closer Dan Bauer.

Bauer then came in and mowed the Rattler hitters down in collecting the win. Bauer allowed one hit, while striking out three.

“Today we did enough to get the win,” Jones said. “Chris pitched really well and controlled them until they were able to get three runs off of him. Bauer then came in and held them down to get the win.”

The Cougars opened the scoring with one run in the second and two in the third. JC Perez got things started in the second with a walk followed by a single by Gilbert Gonzalez. After a double steal, Perez scored on a sacrifice fly.

WNCC opened up their offense in the third inning, where they recorded three of their game-high five hits. Travis Lindhorst and Daniel Martinez led off with back-to-back singles. Richie Stewart followed with a 2-run scoring double to put WNCC up 3-0.

Stewart had the only extra base hit for the Cougars.

WNCC will now face Trinidad State Junior College today at 2 p.m. Jones said the Trojans are a team that has the potential to score a lot of runs. Phillips Orta will get the start on the mound for WNCC.

Other scores in the regional tournament saw Northeastern Junior College defeat McCook Community College 10-2. McCook then came back and eliminated Otero 5-1.

Otero 000 000 300 — 3 5 2
WNCC (25-26) 012 000 001 — 4 5 4
WP — Bauer; 2B — Stewart.

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