The Western Nebraska Community College baseball team will enter the Region IX tournament with hopes of advancing to tournament play in Windsor, Colorado.
First stop, though, is a best-of-three series with South No. 1 seed Trinidad State College Friday and Saturday. The Cougars and Trojans will play one game on Friday and then possibly two games on Saturday.
WNCC enters the weekend series at 15-33 and 13-19 in conference play. Trinidad State is 28-25-1 overall and 21-11 in conference play. The two teams have played twice this season with each team winning once. The other doubleheader that was slated for last week was canceled.
Tyler Easter, a catcher for the Cougars, said this team has the potential to make some noise at the regional tournament.
"It would be amazing to make some noise at regionals and prove we can beat anyone in the region," he said. "Defense will have to lock it up and offense will have to play loose and manufacture runs when needed."
The Cougars and Trinidad faced each other at Cleveland Field on March 24 with Trinidad capturing the first game 19-2, but it was the second game where the Cougars put everything together defensively and offensively to get the 6-5 win while scoring five runs in the final three innings.
The contest went two extra innings as the Cougars were down 4-1 entering their final at bat. WNCC plated three runs to force extra inning. In the ninth, Trinidad scored one to lead 6-4, but the Cougars came back with two in the bottom of the frame when Roangeraud Fraai was hit by a pitch and scored on a Shintaro Inoue triple. Inoue then scored on Bryce Peterson's single for the game winner.
Easter said they know what the Trojans will do and the key is minimizing letting the lead-off batters on base.
"Trinidad will try to steal bases and they have a good offense," he said. "Keys to success will be to keep runners off second and get the leadoff out every inning."
The winner of this game will be one of four teams to advance to the Region IX tournament May 11-13 in Colorado. Other first-round playoff series include McCook Community College hosting Lamar Community College, and Otero College hosting Northeastern Junior College. Southeast Community College received a bye into tournament play.
WNCC has all the potential to advance in the tournament after this weekend, but it will take a total team effort.
WNCC is led by Inoue with a .373 batting average with 2 doubles, 13 home runs, 44 RBIs, and 41 runs scored. Dylan Howard is right behind at .317 followed by Peterson at .295 with eight home runs, while Fraai is at .288.
"Pitching will be the most important and we will have to compete for outs and we will have to make minimum errors," Easter said. "We also have to limit the big innings."