March 24, 2008

By Anthony Arroyo Journal-Advocate sports reporter

STERLING -- After a rough Friday afternoon for the Northeastern Junior College baseball team, the 17th-ranked Plainsmen battled back to earn a split in Day 2 of a doubleheader with Trinidad State Junior College Saturday.

NJC earned a solid 7-5 victory in Game 1, while suffering a tough 5-2 defeat in the night-cap. Northeastern is now 20-8 on the season after Trinidad took three of four at Plainsmen Park.

"I think we definitely got a wake-up call with Trinidad coming in and taking three games in our place," NJC head coach Bryan Shepherd said. "I felt the kids might have coasted a bit with the new rankings that came out that put us in 17th. But if something like that was to happen, now is the best time so we can get back on track."

Frustration was the main word that would describe the Plainsmen players and coaching staff after holding onto leads late and losing them. Northeastern would get on the board early, and although Trinidad responded, NJC would never lose the lead.

Northeastern got a big-time performance from Scott Dalrymple, who had two hits and three RBIs in the contest. On the hill, Arvin Perez got the win and Ashley Scott came in and finished with the save.

"Combined, they both did a great job holding their hitters down to five runs," Shepherd said. "It was a back-and-fourth game, and they did a good job keeping our lead."

Momentum seemed to carry over to Game 2 after the Plainsmen jumped out to a 2-0 early lead, but the third inning would prove otherwise.

Northeastern had chances to get out of the inning with limited damage, but three unearned runs would give Trinidad some momentum, up 3-2.

In the fourth inning, NJC had runners on first and second with no outs. Coach put the sacrifice bunt on, but that was not successful, as Trinidad State got the forced out at third base. Northeastern would not score in the inning, nor anymore in the game.

"If we execute that play, it's a whole other ball game," Shepherd said. "That play seemed to really shut us down because we couldn't really get anything going after that."

Stats were unavailable before press time, but the coach mentioned that Curtis Burback had two hits in the contest.

Overall, Shepherd was not pleased with the team's performance, but said he is very optimistic with the Plainsmen's potential.

"We had leads in every ball game against a tough Trinidad team," Shepherd said. "And in every game, we had chances to win. If we could clean some things up, we should be all right."

Trinidad and Northeastern are 3-3 in the regular season and will have to take care of other teams in the conference to break the tie. Next for the Plainsmen is a doubleheader with Lamar on the road Saturday and Sunday.

NJC has already taken two games from Lamar, earning 10-1 and 7-6 victories at home.