Pirates baseball opened their 2023 spring season over the weekend and took 4 losses to host Murray State College, a team coming off a World Series appearance in 2022 and ranked 10th in the preseason NJCAA DII poll. NCMC's next action will be a neutral site series with Redlands College. Those games will be Saturday and Sunday at Joe Becker Stadium in Joplin, MO.
In the opener of the series, NCMC lost a closely contested 1-0 game to the Aggies. Sophomores Tanner Schmidt (4 IP, 2 hits, 1 ER) and Jaden Thacker (2 IP, 0 hits, 2 K's) were able to hold the potent Murray State lineup down but NCMC couldn't find the offense needed for victory. The Pirates outhit the Aggies in defeat but could not push across any runs. Getting the win for Murray State was Colby Langford, a University of Oklahoma commit.
The remainder of the games were lopsided in Murray State's favor. Final scores were 15-5, 14-4 and 13-2. Taking losses on the mound for NCMC were Kevin Toala, Layne Rutherford and Bailey Quint.
Highlighting the offensive production for NCMC was freshman Raynel Del Rosario. He went 5-10 including a home run. As a team the Pirates batted .245.
Pirate's defense struggled at times in the series, committing 15 errors over the 4 games. This resulted in 14 unearned runs. NCMC pitching finished the weekend with a 12.23 earned run average.