Errors cost St. Michael’s baseball team in state tournament loss
RIO RANCHO — It took two painstaking months and all kinds of lineup shuffles for the St. Michael’s baseball team to reach the quarterfinals of the Class 4A State Tournament.
It took half a dozen costly errors and nearly a dozen stranded runners to send the Horsemen packing earlier than they’d planned.
Defensive miscues led directly to four of Silver’s six runs crossing the plate in Thursday’s playoff game at Rio Rancho High as the second-seeded Colts rallied for a 6-4 victory that sends them into Friday’s state semifinals against Bernalillo.
For the Horsemen, the season ends with an 18-11 record that
came with 14 wins in 18 outings heading into the quarterfinals. With the bats red hot and the pitching staff healthy, it seemed they were ready for a deep postseason run.
“Errors did us in today and our big guys didn’t hit,” said St. Michael’s head coach Augie Ruiz.
The Horsemen scored once in the top of the first and two more times in the second to take an early 3-0 lead, yet it somehow felt as though they’d left the door wide open for a Silver team that came in with a No. 2 seed and lofty expectations of its own.
St. Michael’s left two men on in the first inning after leadoff man Marcos Leyba singled and eventually scored.
Two others, Derek Martinez and Derek Roybal, reached safely but none of the next three batters that make up the heart of the order could do anything to produce anything else.
The Horsemen then loaded the bases in the third inning, scoring one on a wild pitch and another on a fastball that hit cleanup man Sean Latham to force in a run.
Two innings later they scored again and had the bases juiced once more, but a sharp fly ball to the outfield ended the threat.
The missing ingredient? The big hit. The Horsemen never did produce the demoralizing blow that sent Silver reeling into a corner.
“There were definitely a lot of situations where we had it right there but just let it slip,” Latham said.
Latham held Silver scoreless through the first two frames as the Horsemen opened a 3-0 lead. It remained that way into the third when the defensive mistakes — which actually began an inning earlier when second baseman Derek Martinez was hit in the left ear on a throw from Leyba at third base, a hit that left him on the turf for several minutes — started to change the flow of the game.
Latham retired the first two batters in the third but an error by shortstop Thomas Erickson got one runner aboard. The next hit a worm-burning single to Aiden Gantt in center, but Gantt misplayed the ball and the lead runner, Sebastian Rivera, scored all the way from first to get Silver on the board.
Up 4-1 in the bottom of the fourth, the Horsemen again got sloppy. The Colts bunted two straight times with a runner on. The first found a seam in the defensive alignment and went for a hit; the second produced their first run on something that was more straight sacrifice than suicide squeeze.
They tied it moments later when No. 9 hitter Alex Granado took advantage of a missed location on a change-up away and deposited it over the left field fence for a two-run home run.
“It wasn’t away enough,” Ruiz said.
The Horsemen left two stranded in the fourth and fifth innings and went in order in the sixth. That’s when the Colts put the nails in the coffin by forcing the St. Michael’s infield to make a play it never did. A leadoff walk to start the sixth was followed by a bunt back to Latham at the mound. He elected to try to get the lead runner at second but his throw was off the mark.
The next batter bunted it right back to Latham again and, once again, Latham went after the lead runner. His throw to third got past Leyba and brought home the eventual winning run.
The Colts tacked on some insurance with a sacrifice fly before reliever Julian Saucedo shut things down with a save in the seventh.
Ruiz said the pressure of the big stage had an adverse affect on his team. Fully realizing they missed their chance to turn the game into a rout in the early innings, they started pressing too hard.
“It seemed like these guys tensed up, big time,” Ruiz said. “I saw their emotions get the best of them. Once it got to a tight ballgame it was kind of like, oh man, you know?”
The Horsemen had eight hits but only one, a blooping single to left the scored Jude Mondragon in the fourth inning, came with a runner in scoring position. The middle of the team’s order, the 3-4-5-6 hitters, were a combined 2-for-12 with five strikeouts.
The team says goodbye to six seniors, four of whom started or played regular roles.
“It was a pleasure coaching them,” Ruiz said. “They all embraced everything we brought and they bought into it. They set the bar for the younger guys.”
GAME NOTES
The Horsemen had another injury during the game: a sprain to the non-throwing wrist and thumb to centerfielder Gantt. He rolled over his glove hand while diving for a ball early in the game. He shook it off, delivering a single in his first at-bat. … Derek Martinez also stayed in the game after getting hit. The throw from Leyba came after Leyba snared a hard grounder to third and tried to get the lead runner who was drifting away from second. As the runner dove back into the bag, he may have deflected the throw just enough to have Martinez take the brunt of it in the left side of his face. … St. Michael’s had only been caught stealing three times all season but had two runners cut down Thursday, once in the third inning and another in the fifth.