April 1, 2008

By Anthony Arroyo Journal-Advocate sports reporter

LAMAR -- It was probably among the ugliest set of games the Northeastern Junior College baseball team collected in a four-game set with Lamar Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

The Plainsmen dropped 4-2 and 5-2 decisions on Saturday, while earning 7-6 and 6-5 wins Sunday.

After the nasty weekend, the Northeastern's record stands at 21-9, which is still a three-game improvement from this point in the season last year. The split also keeps the Plainsmen atop of the Empire Conference with its 9-5 record.

"To lose the first two games and to come back and to scrap out wins in the next two the way we played was huge," NJC head coach Bryan Shepherd said. "There were times that we couldn't even catch a fly ball, but they played tough."

Northeastern held on to a 2-0 lead early in the first game Saturday afternoon, but gave up two unearned runs early and two unearned runs late to surrender the 4-2 setback.

James Quisenberry took the ball in the opening game and pitched well until the sixth inning, where the sophomore walked runners to load the bases. Fellow sophomore Mike McClaren would pitch for the Plainsmen in Game 2 and fared well, but the team was once again faulted by timely errors. NJC also left runners in scoring position on two different occasions.

If Saturday wasn't bad enough, Sunday, the Plainsmen had 14 errors in both games and of its opponents 11 runs, 10 were unearned.

Next up for the Plainsmen is another big four-set of games, being played at Plainsmen Park Saturday. NJC will host Western Nebraska this weekend.