Baca’s hit keys St. Michael’s sweep
Sometimes, a step down in the batting order can facilitate a step up in production. Jonah Baca used a day in the six-hole in the lineup to help him produce Saturday. His three-run home run keyed a St. Michael’s sweep of West Las Vegas, 4-2 and 12-8, in District 2-4A baseball action in Christian Brothers Athletic Complex.
Baca moved down in the order in a 7-3 loss to Las Vegas Robertson on Tuesday, but he had a couple of hits. Horsemen head coach Augustin Ruiz moved him to the fifth spot against the Dons, and the hits kept coming.
The score was tied at 1 in the opener when he drilled his home run to break up the pitcher’s duel. It was enough of a cushion for Sean Latham, who allowed a pair of runs and struck out 12 Dons. Baca was 4-for-6 with six RBIs for the doubleheader.
“We’ve been waiting and waiting for him to turn it on, and now he’ starting to turn it around,” Ruiz said.
In Game 2, St. Michael’s (9-8 overall, 2-1 in 2-4A) scored all of its runs in the second and third innings. The Dons (6-6, 0-2) avoided the 10-run mercy rule by scoring five runs in the fifth, but they could only manage single runs in the sixth and seventh.
SOFTBALL
WEST LAS VEGAS 16, ST. MICHAEL’S 7
WEST LAS VEGAS 12, ST. MICHAEL’S 3
It’s rare to have a coach laud his team after a doubleheader sweep in which it just got outscored 28-10 and fell nine games under .500 in the process.
It’s even rarer to have that coach say it was actually a fun experience.
“That’s exactly what it was, though,” said coach Billy Perdue after his St. Michael’s softball team was swept in a District 2-4A twinbill Saturday afternoon at the Christian Brothers Athletic Complex. “If you can ever find excitement in losing two games, it was today.”
West Las Vegas took the opener, 16-7, and completed the sweep with a 12-3 win. Both games went seven innings; something Perdue described as a positive.
“First time we’ve taken West Las Vegas to seven full innings since I’ve been here,” he said.
Rhiannon Salazar and Lynnsey Glidewell each had two hits in the opener, a game that fell apart for the Lady Horsemen (1-10 overall, 0-3 in 2-4A) in the fourth inning when the Lady Dons (7-4, 2-0) rattled off a 10-run rally.
Freshman Athena Archuleta was the starting pitcher and took the loss. Glidewell got the start in the second game and went the distance. Her team was never really in it thanks to stranding 11 runners — seven of them in scoring position — along the way.
“If there’s anything that can be said about these losses it’s that we did really well and had a lot of fun,” Perdue said. “We just didn’t find the holes.”