Thunderducks Move into Second Place in DAC

DALLAS – Dallas College Richland moved back into second place in the Dallas Athletic Conference after a 13-3 run-rule victory over Dallas College North Lake in eight innings Wednesday.

The Thunderducks (24-25-1, 16-12 Dallas Athletic Conference) are tied with Dallas College Brookhaven (23-26, 16-12) in the second spot in the league behind regular season champ Dallas College Eastfield. The top two teams after the regular season receive a first round bye in next week's National Junior College Athletic Association Division III South Central District Tournament Wednesday through Saturday at Eastfield.

Richland holds the head-to-head and the third tiebreakers over Brookhaven right now, having won both series against the Bears and posting two wins against Eastfield this season. Brookhaven has one win over the league's top team. If Brookhaven wins the last two games of the series against the Harvester Bees, and Richland loses one of the two remaining games against North Lake, the Bears will win the second spot.

The Thunderducks outhit North Lake 16-8 Wednesday in Richland's final home game of the season. Richland scored in six of its eight at-bats, putting the game away on Grant Liebenstein's fielder's choice to score Barrett Howard to cap a three-run inning. The Thunderducks scored nine runs over the final three innings to give starter JT Posten a cushion he didn't squander.

"I give the credit to those guys just about every week," Posten said of his offense. "Just being able to come out here from pretty much the first through the eighth inning, and just be able to compete at the plate, just hammer balls, just really good job by them. Just really good focus today."

Every bat in the Thunderducks' lineup recorded at least one hit, with seven of the nine picking up two. Eight of the nine drove in at least one run. Cooper Reaves was 2 for 4 with a home run and four runs batted in. Mason Anania had two hits, including a double, and had two RBI.

Posten, whose eighth win of the season moved him into a tie for second in the country, struck out six, and gave up three runs on eight hits and a walk in a 102-pitch outing. Dillon Precht pitched an inning of scoreless relief, walking one and striking out another.

"I think it's easier to go out there with the trust I have with my defense, and not be afraid to pitch to some contact at times when I need to," Posten said.

North Lake (24-29, 14-14) took a 1-0 lead on Jesse Orozco's first-inning home run. Brayden McCallum went 2 for 3 with a homer and two RBI. His homer in the sixth cut the lead in half at 4-2. He drove in the Blazers' third run on a sacrifice fly in the eighth before Precht retired the last two batters.

Richland took the lead for good on Jacob Long's run-scoring single to right in the third. The Thunderducks extended their lead to 4-1 on Xavier Perdomo's sacrifice fly and a throwing error that pushed a second run across the plate on the play. They tacked on four in the bottom of the sixth to begin to break the game open.

North Lake starter Grayson Brown got through five innings before Richland forced the Blazers make a move to its bullpen. From there, it snowballed, putting Richland a step closer to playing for the No. 2 seed in the postseason tournament.

"We talked about it yesterday, the importance of that 2 seed in the tournament," Posten said. "We can't control three games. We can control one at a time, and that's super important for us. That's kind of been the mindset for the whole season. We've had runs where we play really good baseball for three games, and then we come out and we don't play like us for two. So being able to find some consistency, if we can find that in the series, and go out here and win the series, and hopefully Eastfield does help us out."