Volcano Vista win is ‘funnest’
Hawks to play for metro title today; Eagles to play Bears in baseball final
It had the look and feel of a game in mid-May.
As it was, Sandia and Volcano Vista on Friday afternoon co-authored a riveting semifinal game in the Albuquerque Metro Softball Championships. There were four lead changes in the final three innings, with Volcano Vista finally scoring three runs in the bottom of the eighth for a thrilling, 9-8 walkoff victory.
“That,” said the Hawks’ Brook Leger, whose RBI single to deep center with the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth was the game-winning swing, “was one of the funnest games I’ve ever played in.”
No. 2 seed Volcano Vista (7-1) will be in this afternoon’s scheduled 1 p.m. championship game to be played at Atrisco Heritage.
No. 4 seed Rio Rancho — which beat Cleveland 2-1 in the quarterfinals on Friday on Brennah Jimenez’s two-run home run in the bottom of the seventh — will face No. 1 La Cueva at 9 a.m. today in the other semifinal, also at Atrisco Heritage. The winner faces the Hawks. “We have a saying, a motto,” Volcano Vista coach J.J. Griego said. “‘We fight together, we play together, we cry together, we win together.’ ”
The Hawks had to overcome a pair of two-run deficits to the third-seeded Matadors (6-3), one in the sixth inning and another in extra innings.
And sandwiched between those, the Matadors faced a three-run deficit of its own in the top of the seventh, but Sandia’s Victoria Reyes smacked a dramatic two-out, two-strike solo home run to tie the game at 6-6, which led to extra innings.
Volcano Vista led 1-0 through five innings on Jaden Encinas’ first-inning home run. But a pair of Hawk errors paved the way to three unearned Sandia runs in the sixth.
Volcano Vista countered with five runs off Reyes in the last half of the sixth for a 6-3 lead. The rally was highlighted by Jackie Gallegos’ bases-loaded, three-RBI triple to center that put the Hawks in front 5-3. Gallegos scored moments later on an RBI single by Bella Mendoza.
In the top of the seventh, Jayleen Burton scored one run for Sandia with a double, and she scored easily on Bailey Martinez’s sacrifice fly as the Matadors trailed 6-5.
Volcano Vista chose to pitch to Reyes, Sandia’s most dangerous power hitter, even with an open base. Reyes made the Hawks pay dearly when she launched a bomb to left-center for a 6-6 tie.
In the top of the eighth, Brianna Minton touched up Leger with a two-run homer to leftcenter and an 8-6 Sandia lead.
In the bottom half, Gallegos and Akia Marshall of the Hawks tied the game 8-8 with RBI singles, setting the stage for Leger (3-0) to win it with her blast to center off Reyes (2-1). — James Yodice
Metro baseball
Scoring all the runs it would need in the first inning, Eldorado avenged its opening-day loss to Rio Rancho and beat the top-seeded Rams 6-1 Friday afternoon in the semifinals of the Albuquerque Metro Championships.
No. 4 seed Eldorado will face rival and No. 3 seed La Cueva in the noon final today at Atrisco Heritage.
Cody Brown capped a threerun outburst in the first with a two-run triple off Rams starter Andrew Duran (3-2).
The Eagles (7-2) chased Duran in their two-run fourth and added an unearned run in the fifth.
Rio Rancho (10-4) saw its nine-game winning streak end. The Rams stranded 11 runners against Eldorado southpaw starter Noah Armstrong (1-0), and left the bases loaded three times.
“Coach (Reid) Figiel just said throw strikes, pound the zone and we’ll do fine,” Armstrong said. “I did that and we won the game.”
Rio Rancho outhit Eldorado 12-10.
“We kept filling the bases. We just couldn’t come through with that one big hit,” RRHS coach Ron Murphy said. — Gary Herron