Marshalltown, IA—Four runs in the bottom of the eighth inning helped secure a victory in the Marshalltown Community College baseball team's regular season home finale as the Tigers defeated Southwestern Community College 7-3 on Wednesday. Anderson Villarroel (Caracas, Venezuela/U.E. Santisima Caridad) went 3-4 at the plate with two runs scored.
Coming off a 16-run performance against Iowa Central Community College on Tuesday, the Tigers looked to keep their offensive surge alive against the Spartans. Villarroel singled to open up the day in the bottom of the first and advanced to third on back-to-back groundouts. A wild pitch allowed the sophomore to cross the plate for the game's first run.
The Spartans scored an unearned run off of MCC starting pitcher Jake Haynes (Hollister, MO/Hollister) in the third to tie the game at one, but the Tigers took advantage of costly errors from the Spartans in the bottom of the third to regain the lead. Logan Holtz (Urbana, IA/Center Point-Urbana) walked and came around to score from first on a misplayed ball in left field for the 2-1 edge.
MCC extended its lead to 3-1 with an RBI-single from Villarroel in the fourth to score freshman Casey Dorhout (Sanborn, IA/Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn). Haynes retired seven consecutive batters at one point to maintain the lead for the Tigers.
A Spartan run in the sixth kept the game close late in the contest, but a pair of Southwestern errors in the eighth led to four runs for the Tigers. Engel Rosario (Santo Domingo, DR/Cenapec) drilled a triple to deep right field and scored on a line-drive single from Dorhout to open the frame. Consecutive sacrifice bunts from Bryan Ventura (Carolina, PR/Next Level America) and Villarroel led to throwing errors from the Spartans to give way for a 7-2 cushion.
Patrick Rankin (Rice Lake, WI/Rice Lake) closed out the game in the ninth to lock up the Tigers' second win in as many days.
Rosario and Pedro Lopez (Naples, FL/Naples) each had two hits to join Villarroel's three knocks. Haynes allowed just one earned run in 5.1 innings to pick up his second win of the season. Tsubasa Maruyama (Yokohama, Japan/Yokosuka Gakuin) pitched 2.2 innings of scoreless relief, allowing just two hits.
The Tigers conclude the 2015 regular season on the road against Iowa Community College Athletic Conference (ICCAC) opponent Indian Hills Community College for a four-game series this weekend. The two teams open up play with a doubleheader on Saturday with first pitch scheduled for 1:00 PM.
Wednesday's game marked the final home contest for eight MCC sophomores- Manny Gaspard (Papillion, NE/Papillion South), Lopez, Alexis Melendez (Trujillo Alto, PR/IBAHS), Jorge Michael (Caracas, Venezuela/Claret), Todd Oberthien (Solon, IA/Solon), Rankin, Colin Schroeder (Grimes, IA/Dallas Center-Grimes), and Villarroel.
