Mora beats Jemez Valley, heads to title game

RIO RANCHO — The road to state championship dreams began well before any one of the Mora Rangers ever stepped on a varsity baseball field. The majority of this juniorand sophomore-dominant team started playing as third- and fourth-graders in Little League, with the ultimate dream of turning a basketball town into hardball lovers.

With an almost standingroom-only crowd at Rio Rancho Cleveland High School clad mostly in Rangers green, that group took one more step toward a dream that didn’t involve running down The Pit ramp in March.

Thanks to an 11-3 win over Jemez Valley in the Class 1A/2A semifinals, Mora (18-4) will walk through the locker room and onto the field at Isotopes Park at 9 a.m. Friday to play for the state title against No. 1 Mesilla Valley. It is the second-seeded Rangers’ first trip to the championship game since losing the 1981 2A championship to Santa Rosa, but none of them remember that.

All they know is that they created a legacy that they hope endures beyond their time wearing the green and white.

“We’ve taken small steps,” Rangers junior pitcher Kenny Martinez said. “We started out with the Little League district championship, then a couple of years later, we won our district champion on the varsity. Then we came and won one game at state, and now we’ve won two games at state. And now it’s on to [Friday].”

Martinez played a big role in Mora’s advancement against the No. 6 Warriors. The righthander, who threw 13 pitches to finish off Wednesday’s 7-2 win over Dora, used 106 pitches to get through five-plus innings before giving way to lefty Conrad Romero. While he struggled with his command, Martinez kept Jemez Valley in check, allowing just two runs on six hits and four walks during his stint.

By the time he walked off the mound, amid cheers from the Mora faithful, in the middle of a 3-0 count to Kevin Garcia — he was one pitch away from the 120-pitch count mandate the New Mexico Activities Association mandates for the postseason — The Rangers had a commanding 11-1 lead that left very little doubt about the outcome.

Leaving Martinez in the game was the game plan for Mora head coach Manuel Benavidez, who coached those Little League teams.

“We got about four or five pitches from maxing him out, just so we could have everybody fresh for [Friday],” Benavidez said.

When Romero came on in the sixth, it was a chance at redemption for his performance last year in the semifinals against Melrose. He took the brunt of a 13-run seventh inning that helped the Mavericks to a 21-6 win. Romero was in that situation, though, because Mora used up ace Alonzo Aragon in a 13-12 win over Magdalena the night before to keep its season alive.

This time, Romero allowed just two runs over the final 1⅔ innings.

“He hasn’t thrown too much, but we told him his time might come,” Benavidez said. “We prepared him for that. It happened last year, and you saw what happened. This year, he came in, he threw well and finished the game.”

Of course, it took the Rangers’ offense to give Martinez and Romero the commanding lead they needed, and they finally dented the scoreboard in the third. With the score at 1-all, Mora loaded the bases with no outs for Aragon, who drove in a run on a fielder’s choice that retired Martinez at third base.

Then came Leonardo Aragon. The third baseman roped a tworun triple to right-center field, then scored from third when second baseman D’Mitry Vigil mishandled the relay throw for a 5-1 lead.

“It was just a good pitch, and I hit it,” Leonardo Aragon said. “I thought I was going to hold up at third, but then coach told me to keep going.”

Mora added single runs in the fourth and fifth before tallying four in the sixth for a 10-run lead.

Now, the Rangers stand one win away from making their baseball dreams come true, and showing the state that they know how to play more than just one brand of ball.