MCC Baseball Season Finished
TYLER, TX – The MCC baseball season came to an end Monday afternoon at the NJCAA World Series when defending champion Joliet Jr. College beat the Cougars 10-6 at Mike Carter Field in Tyler, TX.
Patrick Murray pitched a complete game for the Wolves after an embarrassing 12-0, five inning mercy rule loss to Richland College Sunday afternoon. Murray, a 6-3 right hander from Shorewood, Ill, was on the ropes in the first inning and staked MCC to a 2-0 first inning lead. He struggled with command throughout the game, (12 hits, four hits batsmen and four walks) but was able to finish what he started and keep his team alive in the tournament another day.
“We couldn’t ask for anything more out of Patrick,” Joliet Head Coach Wayne King Jr. said of his starter who threw over nearly 150 pitches. “To come out and save our pitching staff for the long road we may have through the loser’s bracket. It was a really gutty performance by Patrick.”
Joliet took the lead with four runs in the second and padded it with one in the fourth, two in the fifth and three in the ninth while building a 10-3 lead for the bottom of the ninth. The Cougars went down fighting, scoring three runs on a Nick Melino sacrifice fly and Peter Burgio’s third homerun of the season, a two-run blast that traveled approximately 390 feet to left center. Sunday’s hero, Mike Quagliaroli, hit a fly ball to deep right field to end the mini-threat and Head Coach Chris Strahowski’s (161-125-3) tenth season in the MCC dugout.
“We kind of shot ourselves in the foot playing defense, letting extra guys get on base,” Strahowski said. “They nickel and dimed us. We played 11 innings on defense and only nine on offense. We were taking good swings; we had some hard hit balls – three or four balls to the warning track.”
The MCC defense made six errors behind three pitchers — starter Dan Nelson and relievers John White and Tyler Wenz — while Joliet made all the plays without flaw. “Wenz did a great job, Nelly (losing pitcher Dan Nelson) gutted through and did what he could,” Strahowski said. “We were hoping to get him through five innings but it didn’t turn out that way.”
Burgio had an RBI double in the first inning, driving in three runs in his final game as a Cougar. Kevin Wodatch came off the bench and singled in both of his plate appearances. Coventry’s Herb Coggeshall and Juan Bisono each had two hits, a run scored and an RBI.
Joliet recovered from Sunday’s thumping and Monday afternoon earned the right to play the loser of the Thursday afternoon game between Suffolk –Grant (Brentwood, NY) and Brookdale CC (Lincroft, New Jersey) Tuesday afternoon at 4pm central.
“It was ugly last night, embarrassing,” King said. “And we talked a little bit about the things that went wrong and we just said ‘we’ve got to clear it and let it go and come back today and see what happens.”
The Cougars finished their season in Texas for the second consecutive season after winning consecutive NJCAA Region 21 championships and compiling 57 wins over the run.
“Getting here shows how successful we were,” Strahowski said Monday at the team hotel after his team was eliminated. “I think we could have made a better showing – we could easily be in the winner’s bracket right now playing at seven o’clock.”
Strahowski hopes the recent success will help make the program stronger in years to come.
“We should be able to recruit a little better, maybe get some higher caliber guys that use us as a stepping stone to their four year schools rather than a second choice,” Strahowski said.
