The Western Nebraska Community College baseball team earned a split with Otero Junior College Sunday afternoon at Cleveland. And, even with the split, the Cougars are still in second place in the Empire Conference standings, a full two games ahead of third place Trinidad State Junior College. The Cougars left eight baserunners on base in the opener as they pounded out just five hits in falling to the Rattlers 4-3. In the second game of the twinbill, the Cougars had home runs from Elvis Garcia and Camilo Baldoelomar to the 9-7 win.
In the first game, Otero went up 2-0 before the Cougars scored single runs in the second and third inning to tie the game at 2-2. Each team scored single runs in the fourth inning to keep the game deadlocked at three. The Rattlers scored the winning run in the fifth inning.
JC Morales took the loss from the mound, going six innings and scattering nine hits. He struck out two and walked just one.
The Cougars managed just five hits in the contest. Kevin Sanford had the only extra base hit with a double. He also had a runs scored.
"I thought we played pretty well in that first game, but we left some guys on base," WNCC coach Mike Jones said. "We had some opportunities to score some runs and needed some big hits. But we just couldn't come up with that hit that we needed to score the runs."
The second game was a totally different story as the Cougars put on a hit parade with seven hits, including five going for extra bases.
"We showed some power in the second game, hit some home runs and put a bunch of runs up early," Jones said. "They then went to their bullpen and we got shut down and let them back int he game."
WNCC quickly got on the board as Elvis Garcia launched a towering 2-run home run to put the Cougars up 2-0. The Cougars pushed it to 5-0 in the third inning as Baldelomar took the first pitch and sent it deep over the leftfield fence for a 3-run home run.
The Cougars plated four more runs in the fourth all with two outs. Garcia and Baldelomar had the big hits as Garcia had a 2-run double followed by a 2-run single by Baldelomore for the 9-1 lead.
Otero made it close scoring five times in the sixth and then once in the seventh, before Jacob Stutzman and Luis Martinez shut down the Rattlers rally for the team's 20th win of the season.
Julio Davila picked up the win going 4 2/3 innings as he allowed three hits, struck out three and walked six. Carlos Palomo threw a third of an inning, giving up five runs on four hits. Stutzman went 1 2/3 innings in giving up five hits and a run, before Martinez got the final out.
Garcia paced the team with a 2-for-3 game, including four RBIs, three runs scored, a double and a home run. Baldelomar went 2-for-3 with a runs scored, five RBIs and a home run. Jason Sloan went 1-for-2 with three runs scored and two walks. The only other extra base hit came from Nelson Quintero with a double.
The Cougars, 20-28 overall and 14-9 in conference play, will battle McCook Community College on Wednesday in one 9-inning conference game on the road. WNCC will then host conference-leading Lamar Community College Saturday and Sunday.
"McCook is playing really well," Jones said. "They just beat us last week and they went to NJC and won all four games. SO it will be important for us to go out and pitch well. We will also have to put up some runs if we are going to beat McCook."
Game One
Otero 020 110 0 -- 4 9 4
WNCC 011 100 0 -- 3 5 1
LP -- JC Morales; 2B -- Kevin Sanford.
Game Two
Otero (17-31) 000 105 1 -- 7 12 1
WNCC (20-28) 203 400 x -- 9 7 1
WP -- Julio Davila; 2B -- Jared Baros, Elvis Garcia, Nelson Quintero; HR -- Garcia, Camilo Baldelomar.
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