MCC Baseball takes Luna series with Saturday split
The McCook Community College baseball squad split a pair of games Saturday at home against Luna Community College to win the weekend series 3-1. The Indians lost the opening game of Saturday’s doubleheader 5-4 and won the second game 14-2. With three wins against Luna MCC sets the school record for regular season wins.
On Saturday, MCC’s defense faltered to start the day in Game 1 with three errors contributing to four unearned runs as Luna sent MCC to just its third loss in Region IX play and snapped MCC’s 10-game win streak.
“We just had another game with trouble finding our grove offensively. We just weren’t ourselves at the plate in Game 1,” said MCC Coach Jon Olsen. “But I’ll give credit to Luna, they didn’t free pass us and they played defense, so without generating a lot ourselves they made it tough.”
In Game 2, MCC erupted for eight runs in the third inning as freshman starting pitcher Mikah Targett (Sydney, New South Wales Australia) picked up the win.
“We bounced back in Game 2 and were more like ourselves at the plate, and boy Mikah sure gave us a great start,” said Olsen. “It was good to take the weekend series.”
Luna goes to 12-32 overall and 6-14 in the standings.
The Indians go to 35-10 and 16-4 in the standings and establishes a record for most wins during the regular season. The previous record came in 2023 when the team won 33 games during the regular season (and won four more in the post season.) These are the only times MCC has won more than 30 regular season games.
MCC will host Colby Tuesday at 3 p.m. then travel to Scottsbluff Thursday for the start of a split four-game series against Western Nebraska with the final two games played Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Jaycees Sports Complex.
GAME 1 – Luna CC 5, McCook CC 4: After the Roughriders took a 1-0 lead in the first, the Indians claimed the lead with three runs in the second inning. Sophomore Hunter Southey (Auckland, New Zealand) and freshman Kieren Cutler (Paradise, Newfoundland and Labrador) singled back-to-back leading off the inning and sophomore Corbin Lochhead (Vegreville, Alberta) line a three-run home run to right field to give MCC a 3-1 edge.
Luna closed the gap to 3-2 in the third, scoring on a two-out MCC error and added a pair of unearned runs in the fourth to lead 4-3. LCC got a two-out walk, a passed ball and a single to extend the lead to 5-3 in the fifth inning.
MCC took advantage of a Luna error in the fifth on a grounder to second base by freshman Kon Yoshimura (Nagasaki, Japan). He stole second and scored on an RBI-single by Tyler Reyburn (Frederick, Colo.) to close the deficit to 5-4.
The Indians loaded the bases with one out in the sixth on two walks and a hit batter but a doubleplay ended the threat and MCC went out in order in the seventh.
Starting pitcher Aviv Bobrov (Shekhanya, Israel) absorbed the loss on the mound despite allowing just one earned run. He allowed seven hits, walked one and struck out six.
“I thought Aviv really battled and we weren’t perfect defensively and just gave up a little too much,” said Olsen.
MCC had just five hits in the game, the homer by Lochhead – his fifth of the season – and four singles. MCC committed three errors in the game.
GAME 2 – McCook CC 14, Luna CC 2: LCC jumped out on top with a two-run homer in the first off freshman starting pitcher Mikah Targett.
MCC finally got on the scoreboard in the third inning, sending 12 batters to the plate. Kon Yoshimura led the inning off with a solo home run (his third of the season). After a walk and singles by Corbin Lochhead, freshman Jakoby Hamer (Edmonton, Alberta), and sophomore Dalton Berg (Frederick, Colo.), Southey hit a three-run home run to put MCC up 6-2. It was Southey’s 10th of the season. Sophomore Ben Heathcock (Little Elm, Texas) doubled and Yoshimura doubled him home and a sacrifice fly put MCC ahead 8-2
Sophomore Connor Charvat (Omaha, Neb.) tripled to lead off the fifth and scored on Yoshimura’s single. Freshman Owen Weales (Bowmanville, Ontario) hit a two-run home run to make it 11-2. It was his eighth bomb of the year. After a walk, an error, a single by Southey, Cutler delivered a bases-loaded RBI single, Charvat walked with the bases loaded and Yoshimura drove in the final run when he walked with the bags packed.
Targett picked up the win to improve to 7-1. He went six innings, allowing two earned runs on five hits, three walks and he struck out seven Roughriders.
Freshman Chaise Chabi (Sydney, New South Wales) pitched the final inning with a walk and a strikeout.
MCC bats hammered out 15 hits including seven for extra bases along with eight walks. Yoshimura led the way with three hits and four RBIs. Hamer, Southey, Heathcock and Cutler all had two-hit games. Weales and Southey both had three RBIs.
Up-to-date information about MCC baseball including up-to-date schedule and changes, livestream links for home games, rosters, photos, statistics and more can be found on the MCC Athletics website, www.mccindians.com