GREAT BEND, Kan. – The Western Nebraska Community College baseball team gave up seven mid-game runs to drop their fifth straight game against Barton Community College on Sunday in Great Bend, Kan.
The Cougars fell 7-4 to Barton, allowing the host Cougars 11 hits. WNCC, on the other hand, managed five hits. Still, Sunday’s contest was one that WNCC coach Mike Jones said was one of their best of the year even with the loss.
“I believe, so far in the early part of the season, Sunday’s game was the best we played all season long even though we come out with a loss,” he said. “It is not about just looking at the scoreboard; it is about how we play, the style of play, did we stay focused, did we eliminate some mistakes, are we learning from all these games so far, and Sunday was evidence that we are playing better. We made a mistake to their big left-handed hitter in the middle of the lineup and he hits a 3-run home run and that becomes the difference in the ball game. Mistakes are going to happen, but I thought we played pretty well.”
Jones said while the team might have lost five contests this weekend, it was good to see that competition.
“This weekend was an eye-opening experience for some of our guys to be on the road in facing a very good junior college baseball team,” he said. “We didn’t play bad and we didn’t play good. We were somewhere in the middle where made some mistakes that hurt us. But, we also did some really good things offensively and defensively. I was really impressed with our pitching staff believe it or not. When you look at the statistics, it might not look as impressive. Our pitching staff did a good job of keeping those guys off balance. They got a lot of cheap hits, a lot of ground balls that barely found some holes.”
WNCC struck first when they scored a single run to open the game on a Josh Bride single, who later came around to score on a Nick Vanthillo 2-out single.
The contest stayed a pitcher’s duel between WNCC’s Nick Hernandez and Barton’s Brett Bond. It was the fourth and fifth innings when Barton started to get to Hernandez, scoring three times in each inning to take 6-2 lead.
WNCC tried clawing back, scoring a single run in the fifth on no hits and two errors. The Cougars added two runs in the sixth to cut the deficit to 6-4 on three hits. Max Brennan started things with a single followed by a Vanthillo double. Brennan scored on a Jake Vore single. Vantillo later scored on a passed ball.
WNCC had had chance to slice into the deficit even more in the seventh, but left runners in scoring position.
Vanthillo led the Cougar offensive attack with a 2-for-4 performance, including a double, run scored and a RBI.
Hernandez threw well in the early innings. The freshman from Miami went five innings in allowing 11 hits and giving up six runs. Hernandez struck out one while walking one.
Richard Hernandez and Tre Meier finished off the game for the Cougars. Hernandez allowed one run before Meier came in and shut down the Barton bats by tossing three innings and striking out one and walking two in the 11 batters that he faced.
WNCC will be back in action this weekend when they host Trinidad State Junior College in an Empire Conference doubleheader at Cleveland Field on Saturday before hosting the University of Colorado Club team in a doubleheader on Sunday.
“The conference opener is coming up and it is nice to have it here at home,” Jones said. “We don’t know a lot about Trinidad because they lost a lot of players from a year ago, especially with their pitching staff. We are not sure what they are going to bring to the table. We just need to make sure we take care of ourselves, do what we need work on, and be ready to play.”
WNCC 100 012 000 – 4 6 2
Barton 000 331 00x – 7 11 3
LP – Nick Hernandez; 2B – Nick Vanthillo
Empire Conference Baseball Standings
Team Conf. Overall
Otero 0-0 13-3
Lamar 0-0 10-3
Trinidad 0-0 10-5
NE Colorado 0-0 8-7
McCook 0-0 4-4
WNCC 0-0 3-6
Tuesday’s Game
Dodge City at Trinidad State
Seward CCC at Lamar
Wednesday’s Games
Garden City at Otero
McCook at Colby
Thursday’s Games
York JV at McCook
Southeast at Highland CC
Saturday’s Games
Otero at NE Colorado
Lamar at Colby
Trinidad State at WNCC
Miles at Blue Mountain CC
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