CONCORDIA, Kansas — The Cloud County Community College baseball team split Thursday's home doubleheader against Hastings College JV as the T-Birds battled inconsistency at the plate on a windy and cold afternoon at Lee Doyen Field.

Cloud County (5-4 overall) won the first game, 3-1, over the Broncos behind a sparkling collegiate pitching debut for sophomore Gabriel Jacobo. The right-hander, who is batting .286 on the young season as an infielder, pitched like a seasoned starter on Thursday as he went six innings, allowed one run on just two hits, walked one and struck out four.

"He pitched really well, especially considering it was his first collegiate pitching experience of his life," said Cloud County head coach, Eric Gilliland. "Gabe won that ballgame for us."

Jacobo's route to his first collegiate win came innocently enough with a request to throw a bullpen during the fall.

"He got up on the mound and showed some really live stuff," Gilliland said. "He didn't give a run up all fall. He's been playing a lot in the field for us, but we thought (Thursday) was the perfect chance to get his feet wet and he did more than that."

The T-Birds provided Jacobo with some early run support, opening the game's scoring on an RBI single by freshman Trae McDaniel in the first inning.

Hastings JV manufactured a run in the top of the third inning to even the score, but Cloud countered with two runs in the four on a two-run triple by freshman Preston Allerheiligen.

Redshirt freshman Justin Watkins nailed down his first save with a perfect 1-2-3 seventh inning.

Freshman outfielder Matt Bondarchuk swiped his team-leading seventh and eighth bags of the season in Game One, as well. He has yet to be caught stealing thus far this season.

Unfortunately for Cloud County, it was unable to duplicate the performance in Game Two as Hastings JV scored three runs late to steal a 7-4 win.

The T-Birds jumped out to an early 3-1 lead through two innings, taking advantage of a Broncos error and a wild pitch in the home-half of the second, but Hastings JV tallied three runs of its own in the top of the third to take a 4-3.

Cloud County pulled even in the bottom of the third on a sacrifice fly by sophomore catcher Jose Chacin that scored freshman AJ Knight.

The score remained deadlocked at 4-4 until the sixth when Hastings JV plated two runs, one earned, to take the lead. The Broncos added an insurance run in the seventh to take a 7-4 lead.

Cloud made things interesting in its final at-bat, loading the bases with two outs for sophomore Kolton Meyer, who leads the team in home runs (4) and in RBI (12). But the left-handed slugger was called out on strikes on a backdoor breaking ball to end the ballgame.

The T-Birds will look to bounce back Saturday when they host McCook Community College.

"We've got to learn a lesson from this. McCook is going to be a better team than who we played against (Thursday)," Gilliland said. "We've got to get back to taking the punch to the opponent, playing with confidence again, and being that team we saw during the first 4-5 games of the season."

Saturday's game times are set for 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.