NCMC Baseball Season Ends With 7-1 Loss To Maple Woods

The North Central Missouri College baseball team saw its 2015 campaign end on Friday as the Pirates suffered a 7-1 loss to Maple Woods, their second of the NJCAA Division I, Region 16 Tournament in Farmington.
Things got off to a good start for the Pirates, who played as the home team in the game. In the bottom of the first inning, Sean Huggins sent the second pitch he saw to centerfield for a lead-off double. Two batters later, Landon Figg belted a single to right field to score Huggins and give the Pirates a 1-0 lead. The RBI was Figg’s team-leading 46th of the season. It would also be the Pirates’ last RBI of the season.
Things went downhill for the Pirates from that point on as Maple Woods responded, tying the game in the top of the second with a lone run. Maple Woods added two runs in the third and three in the fourth to go up 6-1. An insurance run in the seventh turned out to be unnecessary for Maple Woods, who took the game 7-1 and eliminated the Pirates from the postseason tournament.
NCMC finished the game with seven hits as a team, two of which came off the bat of Stephan Vidal. Cortlen Austin, AJ Salinas, Trenton Kalinowski, Huggins and Figg all had one hit each.
Taking the loss for the Pirates was starter Gordon Arthaud, who threw the opening four frames of the game. Arthaud allowed six runs, five earned, on two hits and eight walks while striking out one. Justin Riggins threw two and one-third innings, allowing one run on four hits and no walks while striking out two. Ethan Massman fired the final two and two-thirds innings and allowed no runs on one hit and one walk with no strikeouts.
For Maple Woods, Jaren Kutzke threw all nine innings, and held the Pirates to just the one run on seven hits. The 6-6 lefty struck out nine NCMC batters while walking just one in the game.
For the Pirates, the loss left them with a final overall record of 23-32.
Maple Woods followed up its elimination of North Central by eliminating top-seeded Jefferson and then Three Rivers. The Monarchs then handed St. Louis Community College its first loss of the tournament in what could have been the title game.
Due to St. Louis having just one loss after the contest, Maple Woods and St. Louis will face off again today to determine the 2015 Region 16 champion.