To say that rain played havoc with the Tacoma Community College Titans’ weekend series with the Lower Columbia College Red Devils is an understatement. After losing their first league game of the season 6-3 to Lower Columbia in the opener of a doubleheader on Saturday, rain washed out the second game with TCC ahead 2-0 in the top of the fifth inning (four and a half complete innings are required to count as a finished game in a rainout when the home team is leading). The game would end up being continued the following Tuesday (more on that later).
The teams were scheduled for another doubleheader in Longview on Sunday, but bad weather postponed the twin-bill until Monday. The Titans took both games, winning 6-4 in the opener and 4-3 in 11 innings in the second game. The loss closed out any hope of the Red Devils catching either TCC or Pierce College for the top two spots in the NWAACC West Region. The top three teams compete for tournament seeding purposes for the NWAACC tournament, which runs on May 22-24 at LCC.
In the opener on Saturday, Titan staff ace Joey Gamache surrendered five runs, (four earned in eight and two-thirds innings) and the Titans would fall by a score of 6-3 to suffer their first loss in 27 games and the first conference loss of the season.
“Gamache did not have his best stuff today but we’ll have to pick ourselves up again to right the ship for game two,” said Titans head coach Ryan Mummert. The loss would bring Pierce College to within one game of TCC in the standings.
With the two wins in Longview on Monday, one more piece of bad luck fell upon TCC. Head coach Ryan Mummert was ejected in game two and was forced to sit out the continuation of Saturday’s incomplete game, with the possibility of missing game one of the Pierce series on either Friday or Sunday afternoon at Minnitti Field. Game time for the doubleheader is set for 1 p.m.
The two games scheduled at Pierce (Mount Tahoma High School is their home field) are scheduled for Saturday at 1 p.m.
With Tuesday’s continuation game tied at 3-3 going into the top of the ninth inning, Lower Columbia would send 14 batters to the plate and push across eight runs, winning going away by a score of 11-4 and TCC thoughts would immediately turn to Pierce.
“We could not come up with the clutch hit or throw strikes when we had to,” said pitching coach Connor Lambert, who took over head coaching duties for Mummert. “They came up with every big play that they had to. Nielsen (Brett) did a good job but it was not in the cards for us today.”
With the weekend series finally over, shortstop Matthew Hirsch reflected on the long four days. “These were two, complete, competitive teams who battled tooth-and-nail the whole weekend, both here and in Longview. There was no quit in either of us,” he said.
Considered a team leader by coach Mummert, Hirsch was now looking ahead.
“It all comes down to the Pierce weekend series,” he said. “If we win two of the four games we will be Western Region champs due to our win over them on March 30. Our fate is completely in our hands.”