AWC baseball clinches 2 seed
Matadors pound Yavapai, reach 9 straight wins
The Arizona Western baseball team is catching fire again at the right time of the season.
The Matadors clinched home field advantage for the first round of the playoffs with a sweep of Yavapai on Tuesday. AWC won the first game 11-0 after five innings and came back to win 9-3 in the nightcap. The wins extend the Mats’ (41-13 overall, 25-9 ACCAC) winning streak to nine with only a weekend series at South Mountain remaining on the schedule.
“After winning these past two with winning at Eastern (on Saturday) and winning today, we have a winning streak here,” right fielder Justin Greene said. “We’re ready to go after South Mountain, who’s first in the conference. We’re all feeling pretty good right now.”
AWC started the first game with a run in the first and second innings, but a nine-run fourth inning aided by some mistakes by the Roughriders (26-27, 15-19) helped the team pull away.
Yavapai had three errors in the game.
Irving Martin (6-2) tossed a two-hitter over five innings. Martin had nine strikeouts.
Yodelvy Merendez hit a two-run home run in the fourth inning to help the team pull away. He finished 1-for-3 with two RBIs.
Zach Huffins was 1-for-2 with two RBIs, Sean Roby was 2-for-3 with an RBI, Greene was 3-for-3 with a double and RBI and Daylan Nanny was 3-for-2 with a
double and two RBIs.
“We pitched well, we swung the bat well and had some good situational hitting in the first game,” AWC coach Drew Keehn said. “We capitalized on their mistakes. They made some mistakes and dropped some balls, but when you can capitalize on those things it can really help.”
The Matadors kept getting a bat on the ball in the second game with a combined 23 hits. AWC scored two runs in the bottom of the first and they kept rolling.
Roby hit his 15th home run of the season in the bottom of the third inning on a laser over the left-center field fence.
“His approach has been good,” Keehn said. “He’s been through the league and he’s a more mature hitter. He’s able to capitalize on pitchers leaving the ball over the plate and he’s strong.”
A six-run fifth inning in which 11 batters came to the plate helped AWC blow it wide open.
Huffins started the inning with a triple to right-center field and Spencer Packard knocked him in on a single a few batters later.
Greene hit a double a few at bats later to knock in two runs and the big inning was on after that.
Packard was 1-for-5 with two RBIs, Greene was 2-for-2 with two RBIs, Ramon Miranda was 1-for-4 with a double and RBI, and Huffins was 3-for-4 with two RBIs.
Fabian Muniz (5-2) got the win after 2 2/3 scoreless innings. He had two strikeouts and allowed two hits.
Greene also was able to get the highlight of the day after he robbed Yavapai of a home run in the top of the seventh inning. The home run would have brought the Roughriders back into the game at 9-5, but Greene was able to track down a ball as it went over the short fence in right field to end the inning.
“At first I didn’t think it was going to go that far,” Greene said. “I thought it was just going to be a decently deep fly ball. I got back there and I peeked a little to notice that I was getting close. I guess the adrenaline kicked in so I was able to get over the fence to get it there.”
The Region I playoffs will begin next Thursday with a best-of-three semifinals series. The Matadors are locked into the No. 2 seed, and Central Arizona is locked into the No. 3 seed.