WNCC baseball drops three of four to Northeastern Colorado

The Western Nebraska Community College dropped three of four games to Northeastern Junior College over the weekend.

After splitting contests on Saturday with WNCC winning game one 10-7 in nine innings on a Carlos Garcia grand slam and then falling 12-3 in game two, the Cougars dropped both games on Sunday to the Plainsmen 10-9 in eight innings and 3-1.

WNCC coach Mike Jones said Sunday’s contests were completely different games. The first one was offensive-minded and the second game was about defense.

On Saturday, The Cougars had a little bit more luck thanks to Garcia’s grand slam in the ninth inning. Before that, the Cougars had to battle back, after trailing by four runs on two different occasions in game one. WNCC finally tied the contest at 6-6 with four runs in the sixth inning, on two-run home runs by Aurelio Monteagudo and Dustin Javins fueled the comeback.

In addition to getting clutch hits late in the games, WNCC also received a stellar performance out of the bullpen by Marco Jimenez. Jimenez, a freshman from Miami, struck out four in four innings, to get the win on the mound.

David Monteagudo and Greg Crowe each had two hits for the Cougars.

In game two, NJC scored eight runs over the course of the first three innings to build a commanding 8-1 lead. WNCC tried another sixth inning comeback, but only could scratch across two runs.

Rudy Soto, Rich Miller and Aurelio Monteagudo all had doubles for the Cougars. WNCC finished the game with six hits.

Jeff Fauss suffered the loss on the mound.

More details on Sunday’s games will be available later.