Baseball | 5/16/2025 12:29:00 AM

Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 Facing elimination twice on Thursday, May 15, the Cloud County Community College baseball team set a new school record for victories in a season following a 13-0 five inning victory over No. 8 seed Coffeyville and a 7-4 win over No. 6 seed Kansas City Kansas Community College in the 2025 NJCAA Region 6 Plains District Baseball Tournament at Dean Evans Stadium in Salina, Kansas.

The T-Birds have claimed a program-best 47 wins this season. Cloud County (47-16) advances to the semifinals where they will face No. 4 seed Cowley College (45-11) at 1 pm Friday, May 16 in an elimination game. The T-Birds have dropped four of its last five meetings with Cowley, including suffering a 15-4 loss in seven innings in Arkansas City, Kansas on March 24, 2025.

The winner of the game between Cloud County and Cowley will advance to the tournament finals to face Johnson County Community College at 4 pm Friday. The Cavaliers (50-11) rallied from an early 5-0 deficit to defeat Cowley by a final score of 9-6 on Thursday.

Freshman Kai Rempel tossed seven scoreless innings and the T-Birds offense erupted for 13 runs in the team's 13-0 win over Coffeyville. Cloud County totaled 13 runs on 14 hits while the Red Ravens were held to five hits and committed two errors.

Sophomore Noah Konings was 3-for-4 at the plate with two doubles, four runs scored and two RBI. Freshman Joey Marino finished 3-for-3 with two runs scored and two RBI. Sophomore Eric Bradicich drove in five RBI with a double. Sophomores Austin Coyle and Cam Macleod and redshirt freshman Matthew Evans pieced together two-hit performances. Evans had a home run and scored three runs. Freshman Lucas Laukkanen tallied one hit.

Rempel improved to 6-0 on the season, posting his second straight start of at least five innings. The native of Calgary, Alberta, Canada tossed five scoreless frames and struck out two while surrendering five hits. 

Cloud County began its scoring when Evans crushed his seventh home run of the season on a solo shot in the top of the first inning. The T-Birds then loaded the bases before Bradicich drove in Konings, Marino and freshman Kaden Budke on a double to right field. Macleod added an RBI single to score Bradicich, giving the T-Birds a 5-0 lead.

Evans scored again on an errant throw in the second inning. Bradicich had an RBI sacrifice fly in the second, while Macleod had another RBI single in the inning to make it an 8-0 game.

The Cloud County offense added three more runs in the third inning after a double to right by Konings scored Coyle, followed by an RBI single by Marino and another sacrifice fly by Bradicich.

Konings picked up his second double of the game in the bottom of the fourth inning to plate Coyle. Marino capped the scoring with a double to right field to score Konings.

Cloud County scored three runs in the bottom of the second inning as the T-Birds grabbed an early lead before hanging on to win its second game of the day, a 7-4 victory over Kansas City Kansas Community College. The win snapped Cloud County's five-game postseason losing streak to the Blue Devils.

Macleod gave Cloud County its first run of the game on an RBI ground out. Budke scored on a defensive throwing error, while Bradicich scored on a wild pitch to put the T-Birds up 3-0.

Kansas City Kansas scored two off Cloud County in the top half of the fourth inning, but the T-Birds responded with two of their own in the bottom half of the fourth. Macleod and Laukkanen both reached on one-out walks before Evans drove them in on a triple to center field to make it a 5-2 game.

After Evans reached on an infield single in the bottom of the seventh, Konings brought him home on a two-out double to center field, and Cloud County held a 6-2 lead at the end of seven innings.

The Blue Devils led off the eighth inning with back-to-back solo home runs by sophomores Frankie Santiago and Freddie Nolen IV to trim Cloud County's lead to 6-4.

Budke, the former Salina South High School product playing in his hometown, led off the eighth inning with a solo shot to deep left field for his third dinger of the season and the T-Birds extended its lead to 7-4.

Freshman right-hander Stocton Timbrook threw a scoreless top half of the ninth, including getting Santiago to strike out to end the ballgame.

Timbrook finished the game with six strikeouts over 5.1 innings of work. Timbrook earned his fifth win of the season, allowing just two earned runs on five hits with two walks.

Sophomore Jack MacIntosh pitched the first 3.2 innings with five strikouts while allowing just two runs on four hits with two walks.

The T-Birds had eight hits, led by Evans who went 3-for-3 with a triple, one run scored and two RBI. Budke ended the day with two runs scored. Bradicich, Nolan Freund, Konings and Macleod had one hit each.