Odessa College had a good day on and off the baseball field Saturday.
Prior to the Wranglers’ nonconference doubleheader against Dallas College-Richland, the Wranglers retired the jersey of former coach Rick Zimmerman.
Zimmerman coached at Odessa College from 1990-2004, winning 521 games over that span, along with guiding the Wranglers to a third-place finish at the 1995 NJCAA JUCO World Series.
Surrounded by family and former players, Zimmerman was honored at home plate, with current Odessa College coach Kurtis Lay, who played for Zimmerman in 2004, there to present the jersey.
“It was great to see him,” Lay said of his former coach. “I heard that during the first game, he was holding court with all of the former players and having a great time.”
Zimmerman likely had a pretty good time watching this year’s team when the first pitch was thrown.
Odessa College combined to score 30 runs on 31 hits over the two games to earn the sweep of the Thunderducks at Wrangler Field.
The Wranglers earned a run-rule victory in the first game, winning 17-0 in five innings.
They had to work a bit harder in the second game before breaking it open late for a 13-8 victory to complete the sweep and a 4-0 weekend at home.
“It was nice to see,” Lay said of the offensive outburst. “Our offense has been a little Jekyll and Hyde lately and we struggled yesterday.”
Odessa College was full speed ahead, scoring three times in the first and third innings, four times in the second inning and seven times in the fourth inning to end things early.
Roe Forrest, Austin Russell and Liam McDonald all had three hits in the opener (of the Wranglers’ 17 in the game), Charlie Collins scored four runs and Forrest and McDonald each drove in four runs.
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