CONCORDIA, Kan. – Entering the final weekend of the 2021 baseball regular-season, the Cloud County Community College baseball team needed a series win over Barton Community College to earn a second-place finish in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference and host one of the four NJCAA Region VI Tournament Sub-Regionals at Lee Doyen Field. The T-Birds would wind up dropping their final series of the year to the Cougars in what would become an eight-game losing streak to end the season on a sour note after such a promising start.
As the calendar has turned to 2022 and the CCCC baseball team now sits less than 24 hours out from its recently scheduled season-opener, there's a lot of promise and hope to change the fortunes that turned so quickly and put an abrupt end to the past two seasons. Among the optimism is the return of three infielders (
Williams Camacho-Soto,
Adler Pierson, and
Willie Ponce) who started a total of 125 games last year along with a pair of outfielders (
Ian Riley and
Garrett Redden) that managed to record a total of 45 extra-base hits including 20 home runs. A pair of starting pitchers (
Conner Woods and
Christian Womble) are also back for the T-Birds to go along with a steady list of bullpen arms which includes seven returners of which two (
Aaron Hayes and
Brady Kobitowich) have already signed NCAA Division I Letters of Intent for next year.
All told, this year's Cloud County team is ready to get back to where things were at the end of the 2019 season that saw the program's highest win total since 1989 (34), the first home NJCAA Region VI playoff series in program history, the first NJCAA Region VI playoff series victory, and first appearance in the NJCAA Plains District Tournament in program history. Trying to match or even surpass these milestones won't come easy as it never does in another strong year inside the KJCCC as CCCC was picked to finish fifth in the KJCCC West Preseason Poll. If history is any indicator, however, Cloud County was picked to finish sixth in the KJCCC West in the 2019 preseason poll before dropping just one series in conference play on their way to their making program history.
Things officially get underway on Thursday, February 10th as a recently scheduled seven-inning doubleheader against the Kansas Wesleyan JV team will take the place of CCCC's originally scheduled season opener at Fort Scott. The T-Birds will still make the trek to Fort Scott for a three-game series beginning on Sunday, February 13th with a pair of seven-inning games before a nine-inning game on Monday, February 14th as Cloud County will play each of their first 10 games away from home. Home baseball is slated to make its debut for the 2022 season on Saturday, February 26th when CCCC plays host to Marshalltown Community College for a four-game series before hitting the road for six more contests away from home. A second-home stop will then take place on Thursday, March 10th when the T-Birds open up their 32-game KJCCC West Division slate against preseason KJCCC West Division favorites Colby Community College.
Among the highlights for the 2022 schedule includes games against NJCAA Division I preseason ranked Iowa Western (10th) on March 15th as well as games at preseason ranked Johnson County Community College (17th) on March 5th. CCCC will also take on both Coffeyville and Highland from the KJCCC East in addition to their games with Fort Scott and Johnson County as the T-Birds will see four of the nine teams in the opposing conference division during non-conference play.
Postseason returns to its typically scheduled format for 2022 as the top-four teams in each division will host one of the teams that finish fifth-through eighth in the opposite division for a best-of-three series. The eight series winners will then move on to take part in the Plains District Tournament which will be held from May 17-22 at Tointon Family Field on the campus of Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.
