Mora rolls past Dora to advance
Mora 7 Dora 2
RIO RANCHO — Anyone who knows sports in Northern New Mexico knows there is no offseason for basketball in Mora. Until this week, that is. On a picture-perfect night for America’s pastime, the Mora baseball team rolled past Dora, 7-2, in Wednesday’s Class 1A-2A state quarterfinals at Rio Rancho High. The second-seeded Rangers will face No. 6 Jemez Valley in Thursday’s semifinals at 1 p.m. at Cleveland High School.
“Mora’s a baseball town now,” said Rangers head coach Manuel Benavidez. “It’s not baseball season very long, but this is our time.”
Exactly how long the season is depends on when the basketball team gets eliminated from the state tournament. In this case, it was early March when the majority of Benavidez’s team showed up after exchanging their sneakers for cleats.
On Wednesday, one of those players showed he’s pretty good at this spring sports thing. Alonzo Aragon went 3-for-4 and reached base all four times, scoring three runs and delivering a key run-scoring single in the bottom of the fourth as the Rangers (17-4) broke things open.
Mora never trailed in the game, snapping a 1-all tie in the top of the third when Kenneth Martinez led off with a single, worked his way to third and scored the go-ahead run on a passed ball by Dora catcher Aaron Jasso.
It was one of six passed balls between Jasso and Haiden Padgett, several of which helped Mora bypass the need for hits by simply moving runners over with free help from the backstop.
The Rangers only had five hits but drew seven walks, had two batters hit and had two more reach on defensive errors.
Aragon got the start on the mound and got the no-decision after working three-plus innings. He exited after 60 pitches, giving way for reliever Roddy Martinez. Kenny Martinez came on to close things out, getting called third strikes on each of the final three Dora batters he faced after the Coyotes got runners on second and third with no outs.
“We can roll any one of four or five pitchers out there, which is a great thing for us,” Benavidez said, refusing to say who he would turn to in Thursday’s starting role. “We’ll sleep on it and tell them in the morning.”
Another thing Benavidez didn’t reveal? The fact that website nmpreps.com claimed the Rangers were the team most likely to go down in an upset in the small-school quarterfinals.
“These players didn’t need to know that,” Benavidez said. “They don’t need to know everything.”
GAME NOTES
Dora left 10 runners on base, including five in the final two innings. The Coyotes trailed 7-1 into the sixth, scored one run and had the bases loaded with the top of the order came up when Roddy Martinez went through a sevenpitch sequence to strike out Austin Wall to end the threat. … Nearly every seat in Rio Rancho High’s grandstand was filled, most of which were by people wearing the green and white of Mora. … In one of the earlier quarterfinals, No. 4 Gateway Christian advanced with a 6-3 win over Cimarron. Gateway starting pitcher Jaydon Stephens delivered a performance for the ages, striking out 17 batters in a 110-pitch complete game.