Pictured: Catcher Si Schumacher, Sophomore from Carthage, Texas making the tag at home plate to record a key out.
By: Justin Hargrove, Assistant Athletic Director
Northeast Texas Community College hosted the Howard College Hawks February 18-19 in a three-game series. Howard College won games one and two, 6-5 and 8-0, but NTCC bounced back in game three to win 8-4.
NTCC Head Coach Andy Morgan and Howard College Head Coach Jake Carlson were high school teammates back in Kansas growing up and set up a good match between the schools.
In game one, Howard got on the board first in the top of the second, scoring three runs and picked up another in the third to go up 4-0 on the Eagles. Both teams would get on the board in the fifth inning of the seven-inning game. The Hawks scored once to bring it to 5-0 but the Eagles from NTCC would have a big inning as well and plated three runs to cut the score to 5-3.
Shortstop Bennie Qualls (Humble, Texas) would lead off the inning with a walk and score on fellow middle infielder, Connor Chavez (Lantana, Texas) double to plate the first Eagle run. Seth Cox (Fairview, Texas) would hit a monster two run blast to left field to cut the lead to 5-3 after five innings of play.
The top of the seventh saw Howard add one more pivotal run to lead 6-3 and hold off the Eagles comeback in the bottom of the seventh. NTCC did not go down easy and Anthony Capobianco (San Antonio, Texas) led off with a walk and would later score with Raef Wright (Burleson, Texas) who followed the walk with a double to right field. The Eagles comeback bid fell short and Howard took game one 6-5.
Austin Burda (Mansfield, Texas) would get the start on the mound and go five innings for NTCC before giving way to George Austin (Dallas, Texas).
Game two for the Eagles would not go there way as NTCC managed just three hits in game two. Howard College would score win game two 8-0.
Sunday afternoon game three action would go the Eagles way, as they took down Howard College 8-4 in the final game of the series.
Howard College would get on the board first with a run in the top of the first and the top of the third to lead 2-0. NTCC got hot in their half of the third inning and scored five runs to take the lead and not look back. Short stop Camden Mitchell (Flower Mound, Texas) go the inning going with a single and then stole second base and later score on a wild pitch to get the Eagles first run of the day. Seth Cox, Nathan Harmon (Highland Village, Texas) Rohan Sanganera (Santa Clara, California) and Adrian Dominguez (Ontario, Canada) would also score in the inning to help the Eagles take the lead and not look back.
The Hawks managed to get one run in the top of the fourth to cut into the lead but NTCC answered in the bottom of the six to put the game away for good with a three-run inning. Nolan Bushko (Haslet, Texas) started things off with a big homerun to left to help set the pace in the inning. Wright and Cox would reach base on back to back walks and later score on a single by Sanganera to push the NTCC lead to 8-3.
Howard College squeezed out one more run in the top of the seventh of the nine-inning game but that is all they would get in the 8-4 win by the Eagles.
Kevin Schoneboom would start game three and go four innings giving up three runs on seven hits and striking out three Hawks. Seth Cox would also see action on the mound along with Matthew Howell (Huntsville, Texas). Cox would pitch two innings with just one hit and striking out four to pick up the save.
