Vero Beach, FL—The Marshalltown Community College Baseball team rolled to a 6-0 shutout over Westchester Community College before falling to the University of Connecticut-Avery Point 6-3 in the second game of the day in the team's opening day at the Historic Dodgertown Invitational. With the split, the Tigers are now 8-6 overall on the year.
Sophomore Kolton Gonnerman backed up the MCC offense with six shutout innings in the opener against Westchester, the sophomore's second straight six inning, zero run performance. Gonnerman struck out a career-high nine batters while not allowing a walk.
MCC struck first in the opening game against Westchester in the second inning as Diogen Ceballos (La Vega, Dominican Republic/Liceo la Romana) roped a RBI-triple to score Luis Duran (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic/Centro de Estudio Espaillat) and Kaleb Hanks (Sioux City, IA/Sioux City East) drove Ceballos in with a run-scoring double. Duran's RBI-single in the third scored Bennett Lopez (Dorado, Puerto Rico/PRBA) to extend the lead.
Ceballos and Hanks teamed up once again in the fifth inning as the two freshmen provided RBI base hits with Hunter Embray (Knoxville, IA/Twin Cedars) scoring one of the runs. Freshman Holt Hunziker (Milford, IA/Okoboji) tossed a scoreless seventh inning to preserve the shutout for the Tigers.
Hanks finished the game 3-3 at the plate, a personal-best in hits while driving in two runs. Duran, Embray, Ceballos, and Lopez all recorded two hits for the Tigers in the win.
Game two saw Avery Point strike first, building a 4-0 lead after five innings of play. The Tigers got two runs back in the top of the sixth thanks to a two-run single from Enmanuel Lopez (Santiago, Dominican Republic/Prepara), scoring Bennett Lopez and Logan Holtz (Urbana, IA/Center Point-Urbana) to pull the Tigers within two.
The Pointers responded with two runs of their own in the bottom half of the sixth to keep a safe distance on the scoreboard. Hanks collected another extra base hit in the seventh with his first-career triple and later scored on a Bennett Lopez groundout, but the Tigers could not overcome the early deficit.
Sophomore Elijah Wood (Washington, IA/Washington Community) struck out five batters in five innings of work on the mound. Freshman Tony Salato (Knoxville, IA/Knoxville) and Bennett Lopez recorded two hits in the loss.
The Tigers take on Kirkwood Community College under the lights at Holman Stadium inside Historic Dodgertown with first pitch scheduled for 6:00 PM (CDT).
