Northeastern Junior College baseball beats Luna 13-4, wins series 3-1

Aniel Del Orbe’s bat finished the job and turned Northeastern Junior College’s trip to Luna Community College into a series statement. The Plainsmen rolled to a 13-4 win in Game Four on April 10 and left New Mexico with a 3-1 road series victory, a result that kept their late-season push moving in the right direction.

Del Orbe was the driver. He went 3-for-4 and knocked in four runs, highlighted by a three-run homer to left field in the sixth inning and a run-scoring single in the seventh. Northeastern’s offense did not lean on one swing, either. George Greene, Tavish Dey and Nate Glad each had three hits, while Tanner Peerey and Eastin Hubbard drew two walks apiece as the Plainsmen finished with 17 hits, seven walks, five stolen bases and no errors.

The run support let Northeastern keep pressing after a lively opening two days in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The Plainsmen won the first game of the series 15-3 on April 9, then followed with a 10-5 victory behind Hudson Hoy’s five-RBI night. Their only loss came in Game Three, when Luna walked it off 7-6 in the bottom of the eighth on Jarren Villa’s solo homer to center field. Northeastern answered immediately in Game Four, the kind of response that usually separates a good road trip from a momentum-building one.

Keon Bandy earned the win after allowing six hits and four runs over four innings, and Callum Baron covered the final two innings without giving up a run. The pitching line was not dominant from start to finish, but it held up because the offense kept putting pressure on Luna and the defense backed it up cleanly. For a program that has been one of Logan County’s most visible college sports brands, that matters now because Northeastern entered the stretch run with a strong 2025-26 record and a conference mark that had it positioned well in Region 9 and NJCAA play.

The series also fit a larger pattern. Northeastern beat Luna 3-1 in April 2025 as well, when Max Valerio powered a 17-4 win with six RBIs. Under head coach Andrew Kachel, who has led the program since August 2019, the Plainsmen have shown they can carry offense on the road against the same opponent in back-to-back seasons. For Sterling fans keeping score from home, this was more than a single win; it looked like a team that knows how to close a series and keep its postseason path in front of it.