It's already been an historic inaugural season for the Western Nevada Community College baseball team and the Wildcats will have a chance to make some more history today.
WNCC will have the chance to win its first series on the road today after a hard-earned doublheader sweep at Eastern Utah on Friday. Pitching and defense continued to carry the Wildcats as the didn't commit an error to support the pitching of Justin Garcia, Cole Rohrbough, Dan Grubbs and Ryan Iodence.
Brad Carlsen led off the top of the seventh inning with a home run in the opener to give WNCC a 2-1 win and the Wildcats scored two runs in the top of the 10th for a 2-0 victory in 10 innings in the nightcap.
WNCC (17-13, 11-7) also kept pace in the Scenic West Conference race and stayed tied with Dixie State for third. WNCC and Dixie trail Community College of Southern Nevada (16-6) and Southern Idaho (12-4).
Eastern Utah (9-19) fell to 3-15 in conference. But Eastern Utah has road wins to its credit against Southern Idaho and CCSN.
"They're good ball club," WNCC coach D.J. Whittemore said. "We beat a couple of good pitchers today for sure." WNCC wil go for the series win when the two teams play a doubleheader today.
Garcia allowed a run in the first in the opener, but held Eastern Utah scoreless over the next four innings. Grubbs pitched a scoreless sixth for the win and Iodence pitched a scoreless seventh to pick up his fourth save on the year.
WNCC scored in the fifth when Jerahmie Libke and Kyle Bondurant both walked, Tyson Jaquez reached on catcher's interference and Pat Grennan walked to force home a run. Carlsen's gamew-winning shot in the seventh was his second homer of the season.
Carlsen also doubled, Libke doubled and Grennan and Jaquez each added a hit. Bondurant reached base three times as he was walked twice and hit by a pitch.
Rohrbough struck out four and didn't walk a batter over five innings in the nightcap. Grubbs struck out two over two innings and Iodence got the win, striking out three and walking none over the last three innings.
In the top of the 10th, Bondurant singled and then pinch runner Chad Walling of Douglas High stole second. Carlsen nearly hit his second homer of the day when he drove a ball to the right field fence, moving Wallling to third.
Grennan singled home Walling. After Grennan stole second, Jaquez drove him home with a single to make it 2-0.
Bondurant, Jaquez and Taylor Meiras all had two hits and Carson's Aaron Henry added a hit. Jaquez reached base four times as he also walked and was hit by a pitch.
"Pitching and defense is carrying the load right now," Whittemore said. "We did hit a lot of balls right at people.
"We didn't execute. We didn't have timely hitting. It's exciting to know our pitching's going to keep us in the ballgame no matter who we play."