Baseball: Local squad takes best shot at USA collegians

PDF: Team USA Roster

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Jordan Makovicka tried to treat Tuesday's baseball game against the USA national team as just another contest.

Then he saw the USA players get off the bus.

“It was like, ‘What are we doing here?''' said Makovicka, an outfielder from Creighton.

Many of his teammates on the Omaha Diamond Spirit club had the same feeling before facing some of the best American college players in a game at Fricke Field in Papillion. The USA roster includes nine players that were in Omaha last month playing in the College World Series.

That group features Jackie Bradley Jr., the South Carolina outfielder who led his team to a national championship and was named the outstanding player of the CWS, and hard-throwing right-hander Gerrit Cole of UCLA.

Those were guys the Diamond Spirit players had either watched play in the CWS on television or in person at Rosenblatt Stadium.

So what's it like to be facing Bradley and the rest of the star-studded USA roster?

“It's a little overwhelming at first,'' said Anthony Bazant, an outfielder from Bellevue University. “You don't really know what to expect, but it's fun to just get out there and play with them.''

Bazant opened the game with a bloop single and came around to score on Michael Blatchford's bloop hit to give Diamond Spirit a 1-0 lead in what would eventually be an 8-4 loss.

Starter Steven Bougher, a Papillion-La Vista South graduate who now pitches at South Dakota State, held the lead through his two innings of work, giving up just one hit.

But the USA team scored twice in the third and broke the game open with a six-run fourth as it improved to 7-0 heading into the 7 p.m. Wednesday game against the Japanese Collegiate All-Stars at Rosenblatt.

The performance hardly put a smile on the face of national team coach Bill Kinneberg.

“That wasn't what we were looking for tonight,'' he said. “We stopped playing after the third or fourth inning, and that's a little disappointing. We just didn't have the same intensity that we're going to need tomorrow night.''

Kinneberg's counterpart, Diamond Spirit coach Arden Rakosky, was extremely pleased with his team's effort, especially given the circumstances. Rakosky's roster is comprised of local college and junior-college players, and they never stopped competing against the best team in the country.

“We kept our composure and kept battling,'' Rakosky said. “I told them before the game that we didn't have anything to lose, that we just needed to come out and play hard.''

While he did his best in trying to convince his players that the team they were facing also was made up of college players, Rakosky admitted to sharing a feeling of apprehension with his group before the game.

“They were scared, and I was scared, too,'' Rakosky said. “I knew my guys would give me their best effort, but it's always in the back of your head that you could get embarrassed.''

Instead, with the exception of the six-run fourth, Diamond Spirit managed to hang with the USA team.

Makovicka and Creighton teammate Blatchford each had a single and a double, with Blatchford's two-base hit scoring two runs in Diamond Spirit's three-run eighth off Kyle Winkler, who pitched for TCU in the CWS.

Dan Smolinski, who plays for Southeast Community College in Beatrice, had an RBI single and made a slick fielding play at third to rob Ryan Wright of a hit in the seventh.

The Diamond Spirit turned two double plays and almost had a third.

“I think we came in wanting to see what we could do against this kind of competition,'' Makovicka said. “I'm sure they came in here expecting to win, so we went out and had fun. We made a game of it, so we can come away feeling good about ourselves.''

They'll also have a chance to look back someday and know that they had the opportunity to face the best.

“We'll remember this,'' Bougher said.

“I'll keep the roster sheet to see who I pitched against. I'll definitely remember playing these guys.''

Omaha Diamond Spirit 100 000 030—4 8 2
Team USA 002 600 00x—8 11 1

W: Mooneyham. L: Tew. 2B: DS, Makovicka, Blatchford, Koehn; USA, Bradley, Springer.

Contact the writer:

679-2298, steve.pivovar@owh.com

Notes

• Kinneberg said Cole will start Wednesday's game against the Japanese. Sonny Gray from Louisville and Noe Ramirez from Cal State Fullerton also are expected to pitch.

• Shortstop Nolan Fontana of Florida turned in the defensive play of the game to rob Andrew James of a hit in the fifth inning. Fontana made a diving stop in the hole between second and third, scrambled to his feet and threw out James by a step.

• Outfielder George Springer of Connecticut had three of the USA team's 11 hits, including a run-scoring double in the third. ... The game drew 1,121 fans. No admission was charged.

• Tickets for Wednesday's game can be obtained at the Rosenblatt Stadium box office or online at etix.com.

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