La Cueva softball gets much-needed split with Alamogordo
Semifinals set in Puentes baseball tourney
It took 72 hours, but the La Cueva softball team got what it was looking for.
The Bears, ranked second in Class 5A, beat No. 3 Alamogordo 7-4 on Thursday afternoon, completing a doubleheader that began on Monday but didn’t finish until three days later due to darkness earlier in the week.
“We needed it,” La Cueva catcher Ciena Perez said. “Of course we wanted both the Ws, but we couldn’t afford to get swept.”
Alamogordo (5-2) took Game 1 on Monday, 8-7 in eight innings. La Cueva blew a two-run lead in the seventh before the Tigers won it in the eighth.
Game 2 on Monday got as far as the bottom of the third inning, with La Cueva leading 6-3 when play was suspended by darkness. That’s where the game resumed Thursday, under far more favorable conditions than the nasty weather the teams endured on Monday.
La Cueva (10-4) scored five runs on five hits in the bottom of the first of Game 2, and junior pitcher Lily Montoya handled the rest. After a shaky first inning in which the Tigers scored three runs, she was rock solid.
Montoya struck out 16 Alamogordo batters while walking only two.
“I felt really good,” Montoya said. “I felt loose, I felt controlled. I had Ciena helping me back there, and everything was good.”
La Cueva beat Texas A&M signee, Alamogordo pitcher Sydney Lessentine, who pitched all of the doubleheader on both days. She also had pitched some earlier Thursday against Farmington as the Tigers returned to the metro area to compete in the Kristin Griego Tournament in Rio Rancho.
“We wanted to come out and make sure we could come out and beat this team,” Bears coach Ron Romero said. “And we felt like we let one go the other day. So we didn’t want this one to slip away.”
Romero repeatedly has spoken about La Cueva needing to prove itself and beat top-notch New Mexico pitching, which is why this result Thursday carried so much significance.
And La Cueva utilized all three of its standout pitchers during the duration of the two games. Thursday was Montoya’s turn.
“Great day for her,” Romero said. “(On Monday), she was struggling with a couple of pitches … today she threw everything, and you could tell all her pitches were working.”
Perez, catching Montoya, said there was definitely something sharper about Montoya as Game 2 resumed on Thursday.
“She was on today,” Perez said. “Today was one of her best days. You could tell she had a better spin on the ball. … She was just locked in.”
SAL PUENTES TOURNAMENT: No. 1 La Cueva, No. 2 Sandia, No. 4 Rio Rancho and No. 8 Carlsbad won quarterfinal games Thursday at the Puentes baseball event at Rio Rancho High School.
In Friday’s semifinals, it is La Cueva-Sandia in a metro final rematch at 3 p.m., followed at 5:30 by the Rams and the Cavemen.
The Bears (11-1) pulled away late to defeat Artesia 10-1; the game was 2-1 in the fifth inning. Reid Jacobson’s RBI triple, and RBI singles by Luke Reiter and Braiden Reynolds, upped the lead to 6-1, and La Cueva added four more runs in the seventh. Reynolds went the distance on the mound, scattering five hits while striking out 12 Artesia (5-6) batters.
Sandia rallied from a 4-0 deficit to beat third-ranked Cleveland, 8-5. It was Aiden Griego’s RBI double that put the Matadors ahead to stay in the fourth; Zach Kmatz was the pitching winner for Sandia.
The Cavemen (10-4) got a complete-game two-hitter from senior right-hander Hazen Wright, who struck out 12 — including nine in a row at one point — in a 10-0, five-inning win over Albuquerque Academy (8-4).
The host Rams (12-3) beat Goddard 4-1 on Thursday night. Sean Vigil’s two-RBI single got the Rio Rancho offense going. Vinny DiGregorio plated the other two runs against the Rockets (6-3) with a single in the sixth. Casen Savage earned the save (his sixth of the year) for the Rams with back-to-back strikeouts to close the game.