NMMI Sports Press
The New Mexico Military Institute Bronco baseball team swept Friday's doubleheader at home, earning a hard-fought 4-3 win in Game 1, then blanking the visiting Cougars 7-0 in the nightcap.
It was the first games of the season for Western Nebraska Community College – out of Scottsbluff, NE – and NMMI's pitching staff – with seven games under their belt – looked very strong against the untested Cougar batting order.
Five Institute pitchers combined for a 1.125 ERA during the two games, giving up just seven hits and two walks, while collecting 20 strikeouts.
Game 2 starter Julio Ramos was especially impressive on the hill, earning his first win of the season and accumulating 13 of those strikeouts while allowing only one hit over 6.1 innings.
Another first of the season was an out-of-the-park homerun, at home, for the Broncos. With severe winds blowing in during last weekend's series vs. Luna, Institute hitters had acquired just one HR at the NMMI Ballpark, an in-the-park affair by soph catcher Benicio Diaz.
But clean-up hitter Adonis Bernal put that stat to rest, hammering a 2-0 pitch over the leftfield fence with two runners on base, giving NMMI some extra insurance runs in the seventh inning of Game 2.
Sophomore righty Paul Ruiz earned the 'W' in Game 1, allowing three runs (two earned) over 5.1 innings with four Ks before turning the ball over to reliever Aidan Zacarias. Freshman Zacarias held the Cougars hitless and scoreless for the next five outs, netting the save, his first of the season.
Game 1's win as a come-from-behind affair, with the Broncos trailing 3-1 heading into the bottom of the fifth. Ovier Alvidrez started off a three-run rally with a lead-off triple. Bernie Socarras doubled to right bring in Alvidrez, then went to third on a sac by Hee-Ryun Han. Junhyuk Kwon tied things up, 3-3, with a double into deep center. Then Daniel Lizarraga brought home what would become the game-winning RBI on another double, down the third base line.
"Their Game 1 starter looked really sharp and made us work really hard to score some runs," said NMMI head coach Chris Cook about Cougar ace Hunter McCollum before going on to talk about the excellent performances by his team's starters. "Ruiz pitched well in Game 1 and Ramos was really on with his location and had all of his off-speed pitches working today, which is a big difference from last week, where he was basically pitching with one pitch."
"Overall, a pretty sound defensive day," continued Cook. "Offensively, I thought at time we were pretty good. I thought we left some runs out there with baserunning, but nothing that we can't clean up. Tomorrow we need to get another quality start from [Luis] Patron in Game 3, then see what happens with Game 4."
The pair of wins puts NMMI's record at 8-1 on the season, with two more games on the slate against Western Nebraska tomorrow (Sat. Feb. 10), beginning at 12:00 PM MST.