Pirates Baseball opened the Region 16 schedule on the road against Mineral Area College this past weekend.  The team dropped all four contests in close, hard fought games.  With the losses, NCMC now sits with a 1-11 overall record heading into their home opener Tuesday against Graceland University JV.

"Coming into the region schedule, our team had been getting outperformed in all facets of the game.  This weekend, we improved in a lot of areas but not enough to take home any wins.  Especially encouraging was our pitching.  On Sunday, we only allowed 2 earned runs in the double header against a potent Mineral Area offense," commented assistant coach Ryan Suttenfield.

The top offensive performer for the Pirates on the weekend was sophomore shortstop Enrique Madera who went 6 for 15 with 3 runs scored.  His season average now sits at .486.  Sophomore Austin Satterfield also swung the bat well coming off the bench, including the Pirates only homerun of the series.

Sunday saw a pair of nice starts from Blake Collister and Moses LaFontaine.  Blake allowed 1 earned run over 5 innings while Moses tossed 2.2 innings with no earned runs.  Solid relief outings came from Lucas Hampton (4 IP, 1 ER) and Austin Wren (3 IP, 1 ER).  For the weekend, the pitching staff gave up 22 total runs, 15 of which were earned.

The seven errors on the weekend didn't help the Pirates' cause.  Additionally, the Pirates couldn't come up with the hits they needed in clutch situations.  In the series, the team left 33 runners on base.  "Our errors were costly and we just couldn't get the timely hits we needed.  Sometimes the ball just doesn't roll your way," remarked Coach Hillerman.