WNCC baseball team splits at McCook

Submitted by JEREMY WOZNICK, Star-Herald Sports Reporter

Making his first start of the season on the mound, Western Nebraska Community College's Rudy Soto helped the Cougars earn a doubleheader split at McCook Community College on Wednesday afternoon.

Soto, a sophomore from San Luiz, Ariz., struck out four in 5 1/3 innings of work in WNCC's 6-2 first-game win. However, the Cougars couldn't keep the momentum going as they dropped an 8-6 setback in game two.

"We didn't play all that well today," WNCC coach Mike Jones said. "This was Rudy's first start of the season and it was nice that he threw solid innings for us. He gave us a good effort on the mound and got us a win in game one. Unfortunately in game two, we gave McCook too many opportunities with some walks and some errors. We would have liked to sweep, but now we'll start looking forward to Lamar this weekend."

The split kept WNCC in the third spot in the Region IX's Empire Conference, right behind Northeastern Junior College and Lamar Community College. Lamar and Otero Junior College split a doubleheader on Wednesday, which kept the Rattlers behind WNCC in the fourth spot.

Trinidad State Junior College is right behind Otero in fifth. Only the top four teams in the conference at the end of the regular season advance to the regional tournament.

In addition to getting a strong pitching effort out of Soto in game one, the Cougars received a pair of clutch hitting performances from Dustin Javins and Greg Crowe. Javins went 3-for-3 and drove in two runs in the contest and Crowe also drove in a pair of runs while going 2-for-3. WNCC finished the game with eight hits.

With the game tied at 2-2 entering the fifth inning, the Cougars erupted for four runs in the top of the inning to take control. Marco Jimenez gave the Cougars another strong effort out of the bullpen as he replaced Soto on the mound with one out in the bottom of the sixth inning and limited McCook to just a single hit the rest of the way.

In game two, WNCC dug itself a hole early as McCook built a 3-0 lead after three innings and led 7-1 after five. The Cougars plated three runs in the sixth and two more in the seventh before their rally came to an end.

David Monteagudo led WNCC's offensive attack by going 2-for-3 with a double.
Crowe took the loss on the mound. He struck out five in five innings of work.

WNCC, 22-21 overall and 12-12 in the conference, hosts Lamar in a key four-game series starting Saturday at Cleveland Field in Scottsbluff. The teams will play two games on Saturday and two more on Sunday.

"It's going to be a very important series for us," Jones said. "Lamar's a good ball club. We need to make sure we pitch well, play good defense and find some more ways to score some more runs."
Following this weekend's series, WNCC will host NJC on Wednesday in its final two conference games of the regular season.

Game One
WNCC 010 140 0 - 6 8 2
McCook 002 000 0 - 2 7 4
WP - Rudy Soto.

Game Two
WNCC 000 103 2 - 6 7 2
McCook 021 041 x - 8 8 0
LP - Greg Crowe. 2B - David Monteagudo.