Pirates Baseball went 0-3 on their weekend road trip to Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College. With the losses, the Pirates are now 1-6 for the season. Next action for the Pirates will be a weekend road series at Three Rivers Community College to kick off Region 16 play. Games are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday in Poplar Bluff, MO.
Game one against NEO saw the Pirates best chance for victory. NCMC led 4-2 after three innings. From there, it was a back and forth affair with the lead changing multiple times. Going into the top of the 9th inning, the Pirates trailed by a run and were able to push across two tallies to take a lead to the bottom inning. NCMC's Kohl Weber walked the leadoff man to start the inning and on the next pitch NEO's Taylor Higgins hit a 2-run homer to win the game. "It was disappointing to lose the game like that but that's baseball," commented Coach Hillerman. In the game, the Pirates committed seven errors which proved costly; only 7 of NEO's 16 runs were earned.
Games two and three of the series were relatively one-sided. The Pirates were outhit 17-5 and outscored 25-1 in the contests.
Having nice offensive weekends for the Pirates were Jurden d'Arnault, Kendrick Delima, and Logan Eickhoff. Each hit .429 over the weekend. Delima tallied 5 RBI's which included a homer and a double. d'Arnault homered as well, a grand slam in game one.
Pitching was spotty for the Pirates. Command plagued the team as they walked 26 batters over 18 innings pitched. "We preach to our pitchers there is no defending a walk. We have to do a better job of commanding the strike zone if we are to have success this spring," commented Coach Suttenfield.
