Baseball earns number two seed with split of Trinidad State

Western Nebraska Community College freshman pitcher Tim Beard knew exactly what he and the rest of the Cougar baseball team needed to do in order to host a first-round playoff game next weekend -- win just one of two games against Trinidad State Junior College.

Beard did just that as the left-handed pitcher from Canberra, Australia, struck out seven including the final three batters giving the Cougars a 4-2 win in the opener. WNCC dropped the second game 8-2 in a game that meant very little in Empire Conference standings since the first-game win gave the Cougars the No. 2 seed in the regional playoffs.

"It definitely is a very big win for us," Beard said. "It is good to play our first-round playoff game at home. We definitely are playing really well at home and it will be good to have the hometown support."

WNCC coach Mike Jones said that Beard pitched well and kept his team in the game.

"I thought Tim pitched an outstanding game for us. He has been so good for us all year long and he gave us another really good performance today," Jones said. "We were able to find a way to scrape across some runs there in the fifth inning. We didn't play our best baseball, but Tim threw us a really good game and we played good defense behind him."

Beard said that even when they were behind 2-0 early, he still had confidence in his team to come back.

"Our team definitely has a lot of fight in them," Beard said. "Our hitters never give up, and our fielding and pitching is good. No one ever gives up. We are strong in that aspect."

Jones said that it was a batter of time for his team to knock off that goose egg on the scoreboard, which they did in the fifth inning when they took a 4-2 lead.

"We got down a little bit, and we made a defensive mistake behind Tim and Trinidad was able to capitalize on it and get two runs on us," he said. "We continued to stay positive, continued to fight for our at bats, and then we got a big two-out hit from Camilo [Baldelomar] to drive in two more runs to give us that 2-run lead."

Trinidad held a 2-0 lead through four innings on just two hits. WNCC came back with a huge fifth inning against the Trojans' ace Bo McLavey. Trace Marsden got to McLavey first with a lead-off single. A couple batters later, Kevin Sanford had a clutch one-out single to right field to put runners on the corner. Jared Baros followed with a single to score the first run.

With two outs, Trinidad elected to intentionally walk Jason Sloan to load the bases. McLavey then plunked Elvis Garcia with the pitch, bringing in the tying run. The very next batter, Baldelomar, then singled to left field to score Baros and Sloan with the go-ahead run.

That was all the Cougars needed as Beard was simply sparkling on the mound. Beard closed out the game by recording five strike outs of the final nine outs. He also allowed just one hit in that span -- a lead-off double to Tyler Jensen.

Beard finished the contest tossing a three-hitter, while striking out seven and waling one.

WNCC managed six hits in the contest. Marsden led the way with a 2-for-3 performance.

The second game saw Trinidad's David Hennie shut down the Cougar bats in limiting them to six hits. He also struck out eight in getting the win.

Trinidad struck first with a run in the second and then had four runs in the fourth for a 5-0 lead. WNCC added a single run in the fourth as Baldelomar had a single and scored on a Kevin Sanford sacrifice fly.

WNCC managed just one more run in the game as Sloan doubled to lead off the fifth and scored on a ground ball.

No Cougar had more than one hit in the contest.

Armani Gonzalez took the loss on the mound by going four innings in giving up five runs and striking out four.

WNCC finished the regular season at 22-34 and will turn their attention to the Region IX playoffs starting Friday and running through Sunday with the if-necessary game. WNCC's first-round opponent will be Trinidad State. First pitch for the games is slated for 1 p.m. each day.

"Now the regional playoffs start and Trinidad has to come back to us again," Jones said. "Tim will have a lot of confidence going into game one and I am sure Trinidad will try to figure a way to get to him. for us it will be letting Tim throw game one for us and let him do his thing and play good defense behind him. We will figure out game two and three after that."

The other first round game in the playoffs has No. 4-seed McCook Community College visiting No. 1-seed Lamar Community College. The second round of the playoffs will be played May 13-15 at the higher seeded team left.

Game One
WNCC 000 040 0 -- 4 6 0
Trinidad 002 000 0 -- 2 4 0
WP -- Tim Beard, LP -- Bo McLavey; 2B -- WNCC (Jason Sloan), TSJC (Adam Anderson, Tyler Jensen).

Game Two
Trinidad (32-23) 010 420 1 -- 8 11 2
WNCC (22-24) 000 110 0 -- 2 6 0
WP -- David Hennie, LP -- Armani Gonzalez; 2B -- WNCC (Sloan), TSJC (Gavin Purvis), 3B -- TSJC (Jensen).