WNCC baseball, softball set for home games

Nothing seems better to be finally playing at home and for the WNCC baseball and softball team, because they have been road warriors for the past month. Now, both teams will finally get to play at home this week.

The baseball team will face Northeastern Junior College on Thursday at 3 p.m. in one 9-inning contest. The game was originally scheduled for Wednesday but was moved because of wet grounds. They will then host McCook Community College in a weekend doubleheader on Saturday and Sunday.

The baseball team is coming off a very successful spring break trip to Arizona where they went 9-3. WNCC coach Mike Jones is hoping to build off that success during the upcoming home schedule.

“We had a real good trip and had a chance to play a lot of ball games. It was good competition,” Jones said. “We made improvement in all aspect of our game, especially on the offensive side we really made some improvements. We are hoping to take some momentum and confidence into our conference play.”

The Cougar men are currently third in Empire Conference play with a 2-2 record behind conference-leading Trinidad State at 4-0 and Lamar Community College at 7-1. Only the top four teams in the conference qualify for the Region IX playoffs.

“These upcoming games are real important,” Jones said. “Conference play is always big, especially conference play at home and taking care of your home field and playing top quality baseball.”

McCook captured its first victory of the season in dramatic fashion on Monday, topping Southeast Nebraska in a slugfest 21-14. The Indians are 1-12 overall and 0-6 in conference play.

Northeastern Junior College, 4-5-1, already beat WNCC in two non-conference games. Jones said they can’t take these teams lightly.

“They beat us in non-conference as we were trying to get some games in,” he said. “I think we have seen some of their good pitching and their lineup is full of left-handed hitters. i think we will be prepared for them.”

The biggest thing for the Cougar baseball team from last week’s slew of road games was that they started to play with some confidence.

“We started to play with some confidence and we started to play real smart baseball and disciplined baseball,” Jones said. “The pitching was outstanding and it has been so far throughout the year. But, we played well defensively and we played smart defensively. We were able to get some big hits with guys on base.”

The softball team will also be at home this weekend as well with some huge games. as they host Lamar, Garden City and McCook Friday through Sunday at Volunteer Field in Scottsbluff.

Friday’s conference doubleheader against Lamar will begin at 2 p.m., while Saturday and Sunday’s contests will start at 1 p.m.

“It will be nice to get a chance to be out on our field and play in front of our very supportive fans,” softball coach Maria Winn-Ratliff said. “Lamar split with us early and have continued to get better; Garden City is always tough has two good pitchers; and McCook picked up their first win of the year and have been getting better everyday.”

The Cougar softball team had a topsy-turvy spring break against some tough competition where they went 3-9 during the trip. The Cougars almost upended No. 9 San Jacinto College before falling 1-0.

Winn-Ratliff said the trip to Arizona will benefit the team down the stretch.

“It was sunny there and i think we are more of a cold weather team to that is good since we are in Nebraska,” she said. “We faced some really good teams on our trip and didn’t come away with as many wins as I would have liked. But we did see a lot of positives to look forward to throughout the year.”

The women enter the weekend home-stand with a 14-11 record and Winn-Ratliff said the key to this weekend games is their pitching staff.

“Our pitching staff has to be more consistent especially when we get ahead in the game,” she said. “We have to also cut out errors on defense and make good adjustments at the plate.”

The Garden City game is Scleroderma Day where all the proceeds to the Schleroderma Foundation. Currently, a T-shirt auction of the shirts that the players will wear in the game is going on. The T-shirt page is online at sports.wncc.net.

The McCook and Lamar games are especially important as they are conference games. WNCC is second in the conference play with a 4-2 record, behind Trinidad State who is 7-1. Lamar is 6-6 in conference play while Otero is 8-2. McCook is 0-4 while Dawson is 1-11.

“All of our games are important,” Winn-Ratliff said. “We just want to go out and do what we do and that is play hard with a lot of heart and pride.”