Marshalltown, IA—For the second straight day the Marshalltown Community College baseball team came up on the wrong end of a solid pitching display against the No. 3 Iowa Western Community College Reivers. Iowa Western rallied late for a 5-2 win in game one before taking game two 10-2 at Shawn Williams Field on Monday.
MCC starting pitcher Elijah Wood (Washington, IA/Washington Community) tossed 5.1 innings of shutout ball before the Reivers tied the game at two in the sixth inning. Iowa Western went ahead 3-2 in the frame and added two in the seventh to spoil Wood's outing.
Wood allowed just five hits on the afternoon and struck out two batters in the game one defeat. Iowa Western took a 2-0 lead in the first inning of game two and never looked back.
The two wins on Monday gave the Reivers (38-5, 18-2), ranked No. 3 in the latest NJCAA Division I poll, the regular season sweep over the Tigers.
One day after the Reivers stole a 1-0 victory over MCC, the Tigers looked to bounce back at home in game one. Freshman Bennett Lopez (Dorado, PR/PRBA) tripled to deep right field in the first inning and scored on a wild pitch to put MCC up 1-0.
The Tigers extended the lead in the second after Austin Gridley (Fairfield, IA/Fairfield) tripled and scored on an RBI-single from Hunter Embray (Knoxville, IA/Twin Cedars). Wood was dominant through the early portions of the contest against the Reivers. The freshman southpaw stranded two runners in scoring position in the second and allowed just three baserunners over the next three innings.
In the top of the sixth, Iowa Western placed its first two batters on base. Freshman Todd Oberthien (Solon, IA/Solon) relieved Wood with one out, but the Reivers manufactured two runs on a groundout and a single. A Tiger error led to the third run that proved to be the game-winner. A pair of insurance runs were added in the seventh as MCC left two runners stranded in the final at bat.
Iowa Western struck first in game two with a pair of runs in the top of the first inning. MCC cut the deficit in half after Logan Holtz (Urbana, IA/Center Point-Urbana) scored from second on an RBI-single from Alexis Melendez (Trujillo Alto, PR/IBAHS).
Starting pitcher Joel Lopez (Dorado, PR/Jose S. Alegria) tossed a scoreless second inning but the Reivers took a 3-1 lead with a run in the third and added another in the fourth. The Reivers tacked on two more off of Lopez in the fifth for a 6-1 advantage.
Anderson Villarroel (Caracas, Venezuela/U.E. Santisima Caridad) singled in the bottom half of the fifth and scored on a groundout from Holtz to cap the Tigers' scoring.
MCC heads to Iowa Central Community College for a nonconference game on Tuesday before returning to Shawn Williams Field for the regular season home finale at 3:00 PM on Wednesday.
