Mark Perez-Krywany

Sports Editor

Butler County Community College, in Game 1 of a double-header allowed 13 runs in the fourth inning for the Lorain County Community College baseball team to seal the 16-2 win early on April 7, 2018. The Commodores also won Game 2 in a 11-9 shootout at Sprenger Stadium.

Star pitcher Kevin Simon with a .84 ERA (6th in the NJCAA) pitched his fourth complete game on the season in Game 1. Him and the defense allowed two runs as the Commodores showed out on both sides of the diamond. One of the runs was earned. Simon completing his fourth game bumped him up to being in a 4-way tie for second place in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA).

The Commodores are undefeated when he pitches the entire game (4-0).

The two runs from Butler came in the first two innings, but recover by shutting them out for the next three innings, because the game was ended early after the Commodores’ 13 runs in the fourth inning.

“It’s just about switching up on a little bit of few things that you know that they aren’t hitting on,” Simon said about his performance. “So I was kind of switching up on a little bit of few things that you know that they aren’t hitting on so I was kind of switching up to curveballs a little bit there. It was nice that the umpire opened up the (strike zone).”

The Commodores, before their 13-run inning was held scoreless until the bottom of the second inning. With guys on second and third base with one out, Commodores’ Nate Bonacuse hit a crucial triple that registered two RBIs with the first pitch at the plate to tie the game 2-2. That was his first and only hit of the game.

“It was the first pitch, fastball right down the middle and had to swing at it,” Bonacuse said after the game. “It’s too good of a pitch to lay off.

“It was a big momentum changer,” he said. “We didn’t really have much momentum going before that. It’s good to get the guys off and going inside of the dugout.”

The inning of the game was when the Commodores scored 13 innings in the bottom of the fourth. There were five walks. Everybody but two players had at least one run batted in that inning.

“Those innings are just fun,” Bonacuse said. “You don’t see those happen very often. 13 runs in one inning. It’s pretty extraordinary.”

“Towards the end, we were kind of getting tired so we just want to get back in the field, get three outs and get to the start of the second game,’” he said.

The Commodores were 10-21 (.476 batting average) in Game 1.

The second game of the double-header was more competitive, but the outcome was the same as the Commodores won 11-9.