MCC baseball jumps on Broncbusters early

Grant Strunk/McCook Daily Gazette McCook Community College sophomore Taylor Trotter high-fives teammates after scoring against Garden City Community College Wednesday at the Jaycee Sports Complex. The Indians won the game 8-3 in nine innings. Trotter went 1-for-4 at the plate scoring two runs.

The McCook Community College baseball team picked up a non-conference win against Garden City Community College Wednesday afternoon in the Indians' home opener at the Jaycee Sports Complex.

The Indians defeated Garden City 8-3 and avenged last week's loss to the Broncbusters in Garden City, Kan.

MCC improved to 4-7.

The Indians jumped out to an 8-0 lead after three innings and held on.

Pitching keyed the victory for the Indians, as they used five pitchers on the day. MCC allowed three runs on six hits. Sophomore Marshall Carr got the day started as he threw three hitless innings. Sophomore left-hander J.C. McKee then threw three innings. He gave up an unearned run and just one hit.

Relievers Jacob Anderson pitched a scoreless seventh inning and Evan Bumgarner threw a scoreless eighth.

Freshman Jesse Zeller came in and surrendered his first two runs of the season in the ninth but held the lead for the Indian victory.

"I thought we pitched extremely well today," said MCC baseball coach Jon Olsen. "Garden City has a very good offensive club, and we were able to hold them to six hits in a nine-inning game. We were also helped by the fact we only walked two batters and only made one error on the day, we pitched and played defense very well today."

Offensively the Indians jumped out to an early lead as they scored eight runs on eight hits in the first three innings.

Sophomore catcher Chris Jirik led the charge in the first two innings with a two-RBI sinlge in the first and an RBI triple in the second inning. Sophomore outfielder Pat Knabe added an RBI in the second on a sacrifice fly and an RBI in the third on an infield groundout.

The Indians collected nine hits. Jirik went 2-for-5 with a triple and three RBI. Knabe was 2-for-4 with two RBI. Tyler Vessey was 2-for-4 with two runs scored. Lars Trizila, Matt Raabe and Taylor Trotter each had a hit.

"Offensively we jumped out early and did a nice job, then we put it on cruise control which I was fairly disappointed in," Olsen said. "We had chances to really get out even more and we just couldn't come up with a big hit, we need to do a better job of staying focused the whole game offensively.

"It was a good win for us and hopefully it helps us stay moving in the right direction. We have played better over the past week. Hopefully we can keep it up."

The Indians are back at home today for a 1 p.m. doubleheader versus Hastings JV.