Quiet Bats Result In Winless Weekend

With opening day finally here for Viking Baseball, BBCC hit the road for their longest trip of the season to Roseburg, OR to face off versus the Umpqua Community College Riverhawks for a four game set.

BBCC handed the ball to the 6'6 sophomore Hayden Schooler as the opening day starter for the 2024 campaign looking to pick up where he left off as a freshman. Schooler took care of business throwing 4 innings of 2 hit ball surrendering 1 earned run while punching out 5 before handing it off to freshman Dylan Schaefer who mirrored Schooler tossing 4 innings with 1 earned run while striking out 5. With the pitching staff holding the Riverhawk offense to 2 earned runs it was up to the offense. Unfortunately, opening day jitters got to the Vikes on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball with the BBCC committing 3 errors resulting in two unearned runs while striking out 13 times in game 1. With a lack of offense and shaky defense Big Bend dropped the season opener by a score of 4-1 with the lone Viking run coming on a solo home run by third baseman Oak Held. 

Freshman Garin Gurtler got the nod for game two as the Vikes hoped to come away with a split on opening day. After solid pitching in game 1, the Riverhawk offense managed to get to Gurtler early collecting 9 hits and 6 earned runs through 4 1/3 before the Vikes went to the pen bringing in freshman right hander Jesse Brown. After walking the lead off man, Brown settled in going 2 2/3 with 0 earned runs while striking out 2. Although the pitching was not as sharp as it was in game 1, Big Bend hoped that the offense and defense could pick up the slack. Unfortunately, it was a similar story to game 1 as the Vikes committed 3 errors while punching out 13 times resulting in a 10-2 loss to begin the season 0-2. 

Hoping to collect their first win of the season, BBCC handed the ball to the Colorado native Brett Nemechek to get them on track. Nemechek was sensational tossing 5 1/3 innings surrendering 1 earned run while punching out six before handing the ball off to the trusted sophomore James Macrae. With pitching keeping the Vikes within striking distance, BBCC had a number of opportunities to cash in and crack the game wide open. A lack of offensive execution along with costly errors put the Vikes in a similar spot resulting in a 4-0 loss. Freshman Rory Swanson, Roman Basurto and Tyson Laugen all collected their first collegiate hit in the losing effort. 

Game four was a chance for BBCC to walk away from the weekend on a positive note and to build some momentum going into their next set of games. Unfortunately, game four followed suit with how games 1, 2 and 3 had gone. Quality pitching, shaky defense and quiet bats. Freshman Brendan McKinley took the mound for game four and got the freshman jitters out early. After walking the first two and surrendering 3 straight hits, McKinley settled in retiring the next 12 hitters. But, the damage had been done, with Umpqua platting 4 in the first, BBCC found themselves playing from behind. With little to no offensive production throughout the course of the weekend, the trend continued with BBCC managing just 3 hits resulting in a 5-0 loss to wrap up a winless weekend.  Head Coach Chase Tunstall had this to say regarding opening weekend.

"With such a young group to can chalk the weekend up to a number of things, but ultimately it comes down to the desire compete. They wanted to win more than we did and we have to look ourselves in the mirror and figure out why. I believe that we have a talented group up and down the line up but at the end of the day it comes down to grit. Myself and the rest of the staff need to do a better job preparing our guys to ensure that we are both mentally and physically ready to go. We face off versus Blue Mountain Community College for a two game set this upcoming weekend and will use what we learned from this weekend to make the necessary adjustments to get on track"

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