Cardinals’ heartbreaking loss caps shining season
RIO RANCHO — When the postgame meeting for the Las Vegas Robertson baseball team broke after Thursday’s Class 4A quarterfinal, one the few faces not completely awash in emotion was assistant coach Leroy Gonzalez.
The head coach of the Cardinals’ football team that has lost three straight years in the state championship game, he walked past a media member near the dugout and said he knew all too well what those on the school’s baseball team were experiencing in that moment.
The Cardinals had just been beaten 6-2 by Bernalillo, a loss that shockingly closed down one of the most successful seasons in Robertson baseball history. The Cards won the District 2-4A title and rode into Thursday’s game at Rio Rancho High School with a gaudy 23-4 record and the No. 3 seed in the tournament.
They also had ace Brendan Lucero on the bump. A junior who rolled to an 11-0 record and 1.42 earned run average, he was perhaps the best pitcher in 4A during the regular season. On this day, he never did look comfortable.
He hit two straight batters in the first inning, then allowed five straight Spartans to reach base safely in a shaky second inning that saw Bernalillo open a 4-0 lead on a two-run single by Isaiah Chavez and a two-run error by Cardinals second baseman Caleb Marrujo.
Marrujo was playing in for a potential play at the plate when a hard shot forced him toward the bag at second.
The ball hit hard off what appeared to be his right leg and bounced into shallow left, allowing a pair of runs to come home — and have Lucero slap his glove in frustration.
Bernalillo would drive home two additional runs later in the game, equalling the most any one team has scored against him all season.
The Spartans did so by disrupting his rhythm, constantly stepping out of the batter’s box and asking the home plate umpire for timeout.
Coming in, Lucero had developed a reputation for working quickly on the mound.
“He never did get settled,” said Cardinals head coach Rick Armijo. “He’s the guy we had out there all season in big spots. They did a good job taking him out of his game and getting the hits when they needed. We just didn’t recover.”
Robertson had just three hits the entire game; a two-run double by Richard Armijo in the third inning, a harmless one-out single by Antonio Padilla in the fourth, and a two-out single in the final inning by Lucero. Scattered in between were a few walks and fielder’s choices, but nothing that hinted at the team batting average of .340 in the 27 games before Thursday.
“I liked our chances coming back but we never did get things going,” Rick Armijo said. “I thought we had good at-bats, getting walks and hitting a few balls hard but right at people.”
Thursday’s first quarterfinal contest nearly produced another huge upset as No. 12 seed Santa Fe Indian School was beaten 3-2 by defending state champion Portales.
The Braves led 2-1 into the fourth inning when a costly error by shortstop Kye Aguilar led to a pair of runners to coming home later in the frame.
Aguilar fielded a three-hopper with a runner heading toward second. He bobbled the ball and everyone was safe.
The Rams’ Josiah Lucero then delivered a blooper that landed between three SFIS players in the shallow outfield, bringing in both runs.
The Braves threatened in the sixth, putting runners at first and second with one out before the Nos. 8 and 9 hitters flied out to left and center, respectively, to end the threat. They threatened again in the seventh, mounting a twoout rally that got runners on the corners, but Jayson Sanchez was struck out on three pitches to end the game.
SFIS was bidding to become the first double-digit seed to ever reach the 4A state semifinals.