The JCC Jayhawks men's baseball team (NJCAA 4-10) hosted the Thunderwolves of Niagara County Community College (NJCAA 22-6) in double header action. The Thunderwolves came into the game as one of the most impressive teams in the region: Winners of 17 of their last 19 games; on a 13 game win streak; scored more than 10 points in a game on 6 occasions during the win streak, and were averaging almost 8 runs per game for the entire season.
The Thunderwolves proved why they have such an impressive record early, scoring two runs in the top of the first inning. The Jayhawks scored a run of their own in the bottom of the 1st inning to narrow the Thunderwolves lead to 2-1. In what seemed destined to be a high scoring game, the two teams clamped down on defense. The underdog Jayhawks kept the Thunderwolves off the scoreboard in the 2nd inning and again in the 3rd inning. The Thunderwolves scored 1 run in the 4th inning and the two teams would continue to excel on defense as the Thunderwolves run would be the last run of the game as the Thunderwolves downed the Jayhawks with a narrow 3-1 victory. On offense, the Jayhawks were led by #8 DJ Yates (New London, OH) who had 1 hit (double) and 1 RBI. On defense, the loss went to pitcher #3 John White (Warren) (2-3) who completed the game while facing 30 batters, recording 6 strikeouts while allowing only 1 earned run.
The second half of the double header saw the Jayhawks and Thunderwolves continue their defensive stalemate. No runs were scored by either team through 4 innings of play in a game that saw a combined 10 hits for both teams. In the 5th inning, the Thunderwovles got on the scoreboard with a run to take a 1-0 lead. The bottom of the 5th saw the Jayhawks answer with a run of their own to tie the game 1-1 with only two innings left to play. While the Jayhawks played admirably against the heavily favored Thunderwolves, the momentum eventually ran out and some costly mental errors by the Jayhawks allowed 2 runs to be scored by the Thunderwolves in the 6th inning. With momentum on their side, the Thunderwolves added two more runs in the 7th inning to down the Jayhawks 5-1. The Jayhawks offense was led by #9 Matt Hair (Frewsberg) who had 1 hit (double) and scored 1 run and by #24 Noah Whalen (Buffalo) who had 1 RBI. On defense, the loss went to pitcher #30 Daniel Recinos (Guatemala City, Guatemala) (0-1) who faced 30 batters, recording 3 strikeouts while allowing 3 earned runs.