Marshalltown, IA—The Marshalltown Community College baseball team pounded out 25 hits in two games on Sunday afternoon but missed opportunities led to a pair of losses to Indian Hills Community College at Shawn Williams Field. The Falcons rallied to take game one, 5-4 before dropping the Tigers 10-6 in game two in Iowa Community College Athletic Conference (ICCAC) action.
Anderson Villarroel (Caracas, Venezuela/U.E. Santisima Caridad) and Bennett Lopez (Dorado, PR/PRBA) each produced five hits on the day, including three apiece in the nightcap. Villarroel finished the day 5-8 with four runs scored.
Austin Gridley (Fairfield, IA/Fairfield) struck out a career-high 11 batters in game one, but suffered the loss after the Tigers lost a one run lead in the third. Joel Lopez (Dorado, PR/Jose S. Alegria) took the loss in game two for MCC.
The Tigers (10-16, 3-5) stranded a total of 19 baserunners between the two games on Sunday, including 10 in scoring position.
The Falcons (18-12, 6-2) hung three runs on the board off of Gridley to open game one in the first inning. MCC answered with two runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning after Alexis Melendez (Trujillo Alto, PR/IBAHS) singled to right to score Villarroel and Bennett Lopez. The Tigers took the lead in the second with a pair of RBI-singles from Logan Holtz (Urbana, IA/Center Point-Urbana) and Lopez to put MCC up 4-3.
After Gridley sat the Falcons down in order in the third, Indian Hills found its way back in to the scoring column with two runs in the third. Gridley, who struck out seven batters through the first three innings, allowed just one baserunner over his final 3.1 innings of work. Unfortunately the MCC bats were just as quiet as the Indian Hills pitching staff retired the final seven Tigers in order to close out the game.
Hunter Embray (Knoxville, IA/Twin Cedars) finished the opener with a pair of hits, including a double. Colin Schroeder (Grimes, IA/Dallas Center-Grimes) added two knocks of his own.
In game two, the Falcons scored multiple runs in the first inning for the third consecutive game against the Tigers. This time, Indian Hills put up four runs off of starting pitcher Joel Lopez. Holtz cut the deficit in half in the bottom of the first inning with a two-run home run to left field, his second home run of the year.
Indian Hills kept their distance with two runs in the second and one more in the third to pull ahead 7-2. RBI-singles from Bennett Lopez and Melendez in the fourth kept the Tigers within striking distance, but another big inning, a three-run sixth from the Falcons, kept the game out of reach.
Schroeder tripled in the bottom of the seventh to score Ryan Thrasher (Sherwood Park, AB/St. Francis Xavier) and later scored on a passed ball to round out the scoring for MCC.
The Tigers travel to Ellsworth Community College for a nonconference matchup on Thursday at 3:00 PM.
