Feb. 25, 2007

The Northeastern Junior College baseball team dropped the first game of a doubleheader against No. 17 Seward County.

The Plainsmen lost the 5-4 decision after twice tying the game. Down 2-0 early, NJC scratched out two runs on an RBI single by Justin Matelka and a sacrifice fly by Jeff Squier.

Seward's Brock Gifford hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the fourth inning to make the score 4-2. The Plainsmen again battled back to tie it with Josh Warren's second long ball of the season.

"We battled back from two different, two-run deficits to tie the game, but we just couldn't execute to take the lead," NJC Head Coach Bryan Shepherd said. "It was a game we definitely could have won."

NJC freshman Darren Chavez started the game and took the loss. Chavez threw four complete innings and recorded a no-decision.

"It was nice to get my first start out of the way," Chavez said. "It was awesome. It was nice to go out there and compete at the next level after all the work. To see how much our team worked to together made me comfortable and made me feel like we were all going out there together. Even against a pretty good team, we all came together and just went after it."

Reno freshman Justin Sortino came on in relief of Chavez to throw two solid innings, giving up just one run that scored on an NJC error.

Northeastern moved to 2-1 on the season.