WNCC baseball team concludes road trip with two wins

Submitted by Jeremy Woznick, Star-Herald Sports Reporter

PHOENIX - The Western Nebraska Community College baseball team concluded its seven-game spring break road trip in style with a pair of convincing wins Saturday in Arizona.
The Cougars beat El Paso Community College 9-2 before thumping Glendale Community College 13-2.

WNCC ended the trip with a record of 4-3.

"It was a real good ending to the trip for us," WNCC coach Mike Jones said. "It's been a long trip, but we've been able to get a lot of baseball in. We've made a lot of progress and we've gotten a lot better in just a week. It's real encouraging. We're going to go back into conference play with some confidence."

The Cougars received two more strong pitching performances Saturday, which proved to be a theme throughout the week.

In the win against El Paso, Armani Gonzalez struck out 12 and allowed just five hits in eight innings of work.

Rodil Martinez followed Gonzalez's gem with one of his own by allowing just two runs in seven innings against Glendale.

"We've had good pitching all week," Jones said. "We had two real good starts today with Armani and Rodil."

Both pitchers received plenty of offensive support.

In the opener, WNCC jumped out to a 9-0 lead through five innings and never looked back. The Cougars pounded out 10 hits.

Nelson Quintero led the way with three hits. He also scored two runs. Jason Sloan added two hits and two runs batted in, while Kevin Sanford added a double and drove in two runs.

WNCC's bats didn't cool off one bit in the second game. The Cougars pounded out a season high 18 hits against Glendale.

Jared Baros led the way with four hits. Baros also drove in three runs. Camilo Baldelomar had three hits, while Shane Wade added two. Both Baldelomar and Wade each drove in a run. Sloan
finished with a double and drove in three runs.

"Our bats are starting to come alive," Jones said. "We're really starting to put together some good at bats."

Jones said the road trip should give his ball club plenty of momentum heading into Wednesday's home doubleheader against Northeastern Junior College. First pitch is scheduled for 3 p.m. at Cleveland Field in Scottsbluff.

"We played seven games against good teams this week. For us to come out of here 4-3 after we had been struggling is really encouraging," Jones said. "This gives us a lot of positive momentum going into Wednesday. We're going to go in with a lot of confidence in a lot of areas. We're really starting to play good baseball right now."

Game One
WNCC 122 040 000 - 9 10 0
El Paso 000 010 010 - 2 5 2
WP - Armani Gonzalez.
2B - Kevin Sanford.

Game Two
WNCC (8-18) 113 042 002 - 13 18 1
Glendale 000 001 100 - 2 9 1
WP - Rodil Martinez.
2B - Jason Sloan.