The sequel has a far happier ending for the Rams
More composed Portales tops Hope in the final
This time around, Portales acted like it had been there before. It helped that it already had.
One year removed from making seven errors and accumulating just two hits in a loss to Sandia Prep in the Class 4A state baseball championship game, the No. 2 Rams (24-7) offered a far more composed all-around performance in their title game return at Isotopes Park on Saturday afternoon.
The end result was a much more satisfying 8-4 victory over top-seeded — and District 4-4A rival — Hope Christian.
“I told the guys before the game, baseball is a game of routine. Just keep your routine no matter what the setting is,” Portales coach Dustin Nusser said, whose team fell 13-0 in the final last year. “I think we were able to get that experience from last year and bring that into this group — to keep us not quite as nervous.”
Nusser directed much of the credit for 2017’s championship season toward the Rams’ quartet of seniors: second baseman Darion Ontiveros, center fielder Emilio Lovato, shortstop Joe Ortega and first baseman Alex Galvan.
“Us seniors knew how it was to lose in the state championship last year,” Lovato said. “It was a big win for us, and we all came together as a team and became a family.”
Lovato got the Rams on the board first with an RBI single in the opening frame, and then made an even bigger statement in the field with Hope (23-8) threatening in the bottom half of the inning. With runners on first and second and nobody out, Lovato gloved Estevan De La O’s fly ball to center and then gunned down Tyler Fickel as he attempted to advance to third. That defensive gem, which Nusser called “one of the plays of the game,” might have set the tone for the rest of the afternoon.
All told, the Rams committed one error and limited the Huskies, who had scored double-digit runs in each of their previous four state tournament games, to six hits.
Offensively, seven Portales players got hits. None was more emphatic than the home run Galvan deposited into the left-field bullpen to give his team a 5-2 advantage in the top of the fifth.
“I thought there was no way I could get it out of here,” said Galvan. “I just tried to put a good swing on the ball and let the ball do the work. It ended up going out.”
Hope made things interesting in the bottom of the sixth when Noah Chavez drove home a run with a sacrifice fly and DeShawn Lee followed with an RBI double to deep left to cut Portales’ lead to 5-4 entering the final inning.
The Rams gave themselves some breathing room with a three-run seventh that included a single, two hit batsmen, a walk and a sacrifice fly. That seemed to deflate Hope’s momentum, and Josiah Lucero retired the Huskies with minimal difficulty in their final at-bat.
“All the seniors … we just carried a responsibility that we had to win,” Galvan said. “This was our one chance to go out (as champs) and we came through.”