WNCC baseball's struggles continue

The struggles for Western Nevada Community College's baseball team continued on Friday as the Wildcats dropped two games, losing 8-3 to Southwestern Community College of San Diego and Santa Anta Community College 12-0 in Southern California.

Cole Rohrbough took the loss in the opener against Southwestern, a traditional power. Rohrbough labored through three innings and was pulled after reaching his pitch count of 75 pitches. He allowed two runs on two hits while walking one and hitting a batter.

He was able to escape a jam in the second inning when he allowed a leadoff triple, but went on to strike out the next three batters. Jake Bottari allowed two runs in three innings of relief.

Southwestern broke the game open with a grand slam home run in the eighth off of Chris Rickey, who pitched the last two innings, that made it 8-0. WNCC (2-5) scored all three of its runs in the ninth on Kyle Bondurant's RBI and Brad Carlsen's two-run double.

Pat Grennan went 2-for-4 with a double, Bondurant doubled and Logan Parsley, Thomas Miller and Cliff Shepard all added a hit. Parsley was also hit by a pitch, running his total to eight times being hit with a pitch this season.

Against Santa Ana, ranked No. 3 in California, Stephen Sauer allowed nine runs, but just three earned in two plus innings. Santa Ana scored six unearned runs in the second against WNCC, which committed six errors.

In relief, Jeremy Joustra allowed one run in four innings and Wes Osmer pitched the last two innings, allowing a two-run homer in the eighth. Andrew Reid went 2-for-4 and Parsley, Miller and Grennan all added a hit.

WNCC will finish its Southern California trip today against Irvine Valley Community College.

"It's not going to be easy to forget," said WNCC coach D.J. Whittemore about his team being able to move after Friday's struggles.

Whittemore added about his team's struggles, "It means I'm not doing a very good job of coaching right now."