Cloud County Baseball Earns Home Split with Highland Community College

Dropping the front end of a home doubleheader despite allowing just two runs on two hits, the Cloud County Community College baseball team saw their offense come alive in game two by pushing across 15 runs on 14 hits to earn a 15-2 victory and split a doubleheader with Highland Community College at Lee Doyen Field in Concordia, Kansas on Thursday, April 4th.

CCCC finishes their week by winning two of their three games in non-conference action to move to 26-12 overall this season while Highland snaps a 17-game losing streak with the game one win and now sits at 12-26 overall.

Game One:
Throwing three innings without allowing a base runner and seeing just two innings feature more than one base runner aboard at any given time, it was a lack of offense for Cloud County that proved to be the issue in the opening game as the T-Birds scored their lone run of the game in the bottom of the first as Gavin Roy moved into scoring position on a stolen base after reaching on a fielder's choice and came around to score on a throwing error that extended the inning and gave CCCC an early 1-0 lead. The two runs for Highland both came around to score in the top of the third with a leadoff walk and one-out walk putting two runners on before a flyout and two-RBI triple on a ball hit towards the right-field line that got past the diving efforts of Nolan Freund and all the way to the fence to allow the Scotties to take the lead.

Cloud County looked to respond in the bottom of the inning by getting a Demitri Shakotko double before seeing the Fredericton, New Brunswick native cut down trying to stretch the extra-base hit into a triple with a Jakob Poturnak single back up the middle leading to a stranded base runner following a following a fielder's choice and groundout. With both teams being retired in order in the fourth, CCCC worked around a two-out walk in the top of the fifth before again being retired in order in their half of the inning along with the final two innings of play with the final 13 batters of the game by Cloud County being retired in order.

Outdueled on the mound, Kevin Mannell took his first loss of the year after throwing three innings and 54 pitches to strike out five and give up two runs on one hit while John Klus worked the final four innings in relief and gave up one hit to go along with five strikeouts. Meanwhile, it was Highland's Keaton Matlick earning the win in relief as the freshman did not allow a base runner and retired all 12 batters he faced on 53 total pitches. Offensively, no player in the game had more than one hit with the T-Birds seeing Paul Schuyler go one-for-two with a hit and walk to draw the lone T-Bird walk as CCCC stranded five base runners.

Game Two:
Following the quick pace of game one which took just one hour and 29 minutes to complete, Cloud County threatened to jump out to an early lead in game two by putting their first two batters of the first inning aboard before loading the bases on a Scottie error. After a popup in foul territory that was caught by the HCC catcher, Highland got the break they needed to end the inning as a strikeout and back pick at third ended the inning with a double play as two CCCC runners were stranded to keep things scoreless heading to the second.

In the second, Cloud County starter TJ Coats worked around a two-out single before helping his own cause at the plate with a leadoff walk followed by a walk issued to Easton Mould as Cam MaCleod drove home the first run of the game on a single into center field. After a balk moved both base runners into scoring position, CCCC got a throwing error to move both runners up once more to make the game 2-0 with MaCleod now at third to set up a Roy RBI double two batters later. The first out of the inning came six batters into the inning before seeing Shakotko lay down a bunt down the third base line to load the bases and set up a Poturnak single into right field that missed being a home run by a few feet and scored Meyer. After a Freund fielder's choice, Coats came back up for the second time in the inning and drove home one final run on a single before being cut down at second on a relay throw with Shakotko scoring to cap off a six-run inning for Cloud County.

Things remained a 6-0 T-Bird advantage into the bottom of the fourth when CCCC took advantage of a Highland pitching change with Roy drawing a leadoff walk followed by a Shakotko one-out single and Poturnak fielders choice to put runners at first and second with two outs. Freund delivered the big blow of the inning by hitting a triple down into the right field corner to score both runners followed by a Coats RBI double with Mould continuing the rally with an RBI single to make it a 10-0 Cloud County lead. Another run came around to score one inning later for CCCC with Austin Coyle hitting a pinch-hit RBI single to score Landon Meyer with everything going the way of the T-Birds who were well on their way to a run-rule-shortened victory.

Making their first move of the game to the bullpen and bringing on Ethan Price, Cloud County worked around a one-out walk and two-out double into the right-center field gap as a perfectly placed relay throw from Freund to Mould to MaCleod at the plate cut down a potential run for Highland to keep the Scotties off the board heading into the bottom of the sixth. Another seven batters came to the plate for CCCC in the bottom of the inning with a two-RBI single from Meyer seeing four runs ultimately come home on the play as a throwing error allowed by pinch-hitter Caden Walker and Meyer to score on the play. In the top of the seventh, Highland broke through with two runs coming around to score on one hit with a leadoff walk and a hit batter both scoring following an RBI single and error on the play that brought home HCC's final run of the game with a groundout from the next batter ending the game.

Once again, the Cloud County pitching staff did their job to hold Highland to just five hits while striking out nine batters with Coats improving to 5-2 after throwing five innings and striking out six before seeing both Price and Jack MacIntosh throw one inning each and combine for three total strikeouts. Multi-hit games from Shaktoko, Poturnak, Coats, and Meyer helped lead the way with Meyer scoring three times and Coats driving in a pair of runs as CCCC saw four of their 15 hits go for extra bases.

What's Next?
A five-game week kicks off for Cloud County next Monday at home following the weekend off as the T-Birds will host Hastings College JV in a 2 PM, single nine-inning contest at Lee Doyen Field. Hastings JV has played just one game against an NJCAA opponent this season, dropping an 11-0 decision to Southeast Community College on March 20th.