The Western Nebraska Community College baseball team dropped a pair of competitive games against No. 3 Central Arizona College on Monday, March 13.
Cougar pitcher Clayden Brandon allowed just four hits while striking out three in the opening game, but Vaquero starting pitcher Theo Miller and Josh Aribal combined on a one hitter in a 2-0 win.
WNCC held a 3-0 lead in the second game, but Central Arizona scored seven late runs to earn the 9-3 win.
The first game was a pitcher’s duel between Miller and Brandon. Brandon went all six innings and the only runs he gave up were single runs in the fourth and sixth inning. Miller struck out six in his six innings of work while Aribal picked up his fourth save of the season and struck out all three Cougar batters in the seventh.
The Cougars’ Jacob Jackson had a single in the second inning, to put runners on the corner, but WNCC could not capitalize.
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The Cougars plated two runs in the first inning of the second game and one in the third for a 3-0 lead.
Central Arizona answered with one in the bottom of the third to cut the deficit to 3-1 and then made it a one-run game with a single run in the fifth for a 3-2 score.
Central Arizona came through in the seventh with three runs and then added four more in the eighth.
WNCC finished with five hits with Shintaro Inoue getting a double and scoring two runs.
Madison College 6, WNCC 5: WNCC opened its Spring Break trip in Arizona with a 14-inning loss on Sunday to a Madison College team that reached the NJCAA Division II national championship game last year.
WNCC finished the nine hits in the game. Garrett Dodd had a double and two RBI and Eli Hernandez had a solo home run that gave WNCC a 5-3 lead at the time.
Madison scored three runs in the bottom of the third, but WNCC rallied with four in the top of the sixth. Madison tied the game with two runs in the eighth.
Three Madison pitchers combined for 15 strikeouts.
College softball
WNCC 26, Lamar 6: Avery Fox tied a program record with six runs scored in the Cougars Region IX win on Sunday in Lamar, Colorado.
The 26 runs are tied for third most for a single game in Cougars program history.
Erin Hurst, who had a hit and was walked three times, scored four runs as well.
Morgan Dustin went 3-for-3 with two RBI and two runs scored to lead the Cougars.
Fox and Arianah Plorin both added three RBI.
WNCC 10-16, Lamar 2-8: Plorin hit two home runs and Dustin added one as the Cougars swept a doubleheader on Saturday.
The Cougars scored six runs in the second inning to win the opening game, and WNCC added 12 hits in the second game, which was a win in five innings.
“Everyone had a lot of heart and hustle,” Plorin, a sophomore from Casper, Wyoming, said. “These two wins set the tone for Cougar softball for the rest of the conference.”
