By: Justin Hargrove, Assistant Athletic Director
Northeast Texas Community College Baseball kicked off the season with a road series at Arkansas Rich Mountain on Thursday, winning game one of the series 9-6 before dropping game to Rich Mountain.
Rich Mountain would get on the scoreboard first, plating two runs in the bottom of the first inning. NTCC would get right back in the game in the second inning, scoring three runs to take the lead 3-2.
Caleb Munton (Abilene Wylie HS) started things off with a walk in the second inning and move on to second base with a single by Sawyre Thornhill (Huntington HS). Both would score on passed balls to even the score at 2-2 with Jake Chapman (Boerne HS) scoring off a single to center by Jett Forrest (Lorena HS) to bring the score to 3-2 Eagles.
Both teams would go back and forth scoring runs, Arkansas Rich Mountain adding one run in the bottom of the second and NTCC adding another run in the top of the fourth. Chapman would score a second time in the game after he doubled in his second at bat and moved around thanks to an error by the Centerfielder when Drew Baggerly (Deer Park HS) put the ball in play.
The Eagles added two more runs in the fifth and put the game away in the sixth when Khalon Clayton (Kilgore HS) hit a two-run homerun to put NTCC up 9-5. Rich Mountain would add another run in the seventh, but fell short in the comeback attempt.
NTCC sent Mikel Howell (Huntsville HS) to the mound to start the game and he would go three innings striking out 2. Howell gave way to Kade Wood (Atlanta HS) who would go two and two-thirds inning, striking out three batters. Justin Lambright (Trenton HS) would get the ball for the final one and one-third innings of work, he added two more strikeouts to bring the pitching staff total to seven K’s on the day.
Game two of the set was not as kind to NTCC, Rich Mountain took advantage of 3 errors and pounded out 24 hits off 5 Eagle pitchers to take game two 25-7.
The Eagles did have some bright spots offensively with Clayton going three for three with three runs scored to help lead the NTCC offensive effort in game two. The Eagles had two homeruns in the game, Munton and Thornhill would go back to back in the first inning to give NTCC a brief 4-0 lead.
NTCC will have the home opener against Arkansas Rich Mountain Saturday at 1:00pm at NTCC.
