Petroglyph stops Altamont
It uses six pitchers to throw 3-hitter
RIO RANCHO — It was all about the hill and some timely hitting Sunday in an elimination game between New Mexico teams in the consolation bracket of the Junior League Baseball Southwestern Regional.
Using six pitchers, Petroglyph Little League allowed just three hits to remain alive with an 11-1 victory over Altamont at Rio Rancho High School.
“They’re a great team,” Petroglyph manager Steve Sparks said of Altamont. “I can’t believe we threw six pitchers and they only got three hits. I watched them hit (Saturday) and they just raked the ball. I take my hat off to the pitchers. They did a great job.”
The offense did a great job, as well, getting timely hits, especially late.
Petroglyph took a 2-0 lead into the fourth inning, when Altamont bunched two walks and a base hit to cut the deficit to 2-1.
But Petroglyph all but sealed the game in the fifth. With the bases loaded and no outs, Altamont turned a pitcher to catcher to first base double play that seemed to squelch Petroglyph’s advantage.
Zion Springer, however, had other ideas, lining a pitch up the middle to score two runs.
“That was huge. It was a big momentum change,” Sparks said of the clutch hit. “They had just taken the momentum, and he came back and ripped the ball up the middle, scores two runs and we got it right back.”
After going 0-for-2 on his first two at bats Springer said he was looking for some gaps in the defense.
“That was big because they had just made a big play,” he said. “I was struggling but I was looking for some place to place it, and it wasn’t too tough because he wasn’t throwing very hard. That was important to score those runs because it gave us the momentum.”
The bats came alive more as the game progressed, with Petroglyph scoring twice in the fifth and sixth and posting five in the seventh.
“We’re still not quite to where we have been in the past,” Sparks said. “This is a really good hitting team. They were about seven out of 10 today. I think we’re going to get rolling.”
After that, it was just a parade of pitchers as Sparks was rotating about every 20 pitches.
“We knew going in that we would have two games (today) and two games on Tuesday,” he said. “I’m 100 percent confident that if we could keep them rolling, we could make a run at the tournament. So we couldn’t lose any pitchers for the next two days. We’ve got four games in the next two days, and with the pitch count, that makes it really tough going in with the Little League rules. So we had 20-20-20. We had seven pitchers lined up. And about 30 gray hairs.”