VEGAS BRAGGING RIGHTS
Robertson clobbers crosstown rival West Las Vegas for state title
It took a lifetime to get here. It took about 40 minutes to end the suspense. Scoring six runs in the third inning and five more in the fifth, Las Vegas Robertson dominated crosstown rival West Las Vegas, 11-1 in five innings to win the Class 3A State Baseball Championship. More importantly, the Cardinals won bragging rights in the Meadow City. Saturday’s matchup at Santa Ana Star Field was the first of its kind for the two Las Vegas schools. More than a decade ago, the town’s wrestling teams met in a duals final at state, and within the last few years, the basketball teams have crossed each others’ paths in the playoffs before the state title game.
In baseball, it had never happened before Saturday. One game, two city teams, the season on the line. It was all Cardinals. They left the bases loaded without scoring in the first inning and then went down in order in the second. After spotting West Las Vegas a 1-0 lead on a bases-loaded walk to the No. 9 hitter in the bottom
of the second, Cardinals starting pitcher Antonio Padilla settled down and retired nine of the final 11 batters he faced. He got the final out on a comebacker to the mound in the fifth to end it early via the mercy rule. “Friends off the field, competitors on it,” Padilla
said. “Most of their guys are people we grew up playing either with or against. I have a lot of respect for them, and when it’s not baseball, I like all of them. Out here, though, this is a game and it’s all about winning. We can talk after baseball season.”
Padilla graded his complete game as a big, fat “meh” in his personal record book, referencing his only shaky frame in which he walked two, gave up a hit and plunked the Dons’ Marcos Solano in the head with an offspeed pitch.
“I was just trying to get through it,” Padilla said.
He allowed just two hits, helping his own cause with two hits, two stolen bases, a pair of runs scored and an RBI. Austen King and Brandon Lucero also had a pair of hits, as did Derrick Montano. It was part of a 14-hit Cardinals carousel that took the drama out of it even before the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds began making several close passes as part of Saturday’s Kirtland Air and Space Fiesta a few miles away.
For Lucero, it was the perfect way to say goodbye to a stellar prep career that included his role as part of the school’s football team that reached — and lost — four straight state championships.
“It feels so good to finally get one,” he said. “There are bigger and brighter things ahead for me, but this — this is the perfect way to go out.”
The same could be said for head coach Leroy Gonzalez, who has cultivated a remarkable career as Robertson’s football coach.
“It feels good to finally do one of these after a win and not a loss,” he said when approached for a postgame interview.
Gonzalez has had an extensive history coaching baseball and finally took over this season when talked into it by school administrators. “As long as my health is good, I want to keep doing both,” he said. “I’ve had people approach me and say I should just coach baseball, but I get that competitive side of me going every football season.”
The tournament’s top seed, Robertson completed the season on a 10-game winning streak that saw them score double-figure runs seven times.
“We’ve been hitting the ball so good lately, and it’s not just two or three guys,” Gonzalez said. “It’s the entire team.”
Padilla started the third inning with a triple to right. He came in on a single by Caleb Marujo as part of a sequence in which nine of 10 Cardinals batters reached base against West Las Vegas starter Antonio Bustamante.
Bustamante was charged with all six runs in the inning and was removed from the game when he was injured on a double by Montano. Playing centerfield, Bustamante lost the ball in the sun and made a last-second lunge before it hit the turf. As he entered the dugout, he slammed his glove into the bench, an understandable reaction to what was a frustrating end to the Dons’ memorable run to the finals.
The No. 3 seed, West Las Vegas (21-7) had taken two of three games against the Cardinals in the regular season and reached the state title game for the first time since Jimmy Carter was in the White House.
The Dons’ undoing was Padilla’s mastery of the top of the order. The 1-through-4 hitters in the West Las Vegas lineup combined to go 0-for-9 with four strikeouts.
Lucero said he had long wanted to be the guy on the mound if and when Robertson ever won a title. He’d injured his pitching elbow in mid-April and hadn’t taken the ball again until Friday’s semifinals.
“I think you always want to be the pitcher when it ends,” Lucero said. “But this feels good, too.”
Standing about 10 feet away as he posed for photos with the blue championship trophy, Padilla — a longtime teammate of Lucero’s in football — said, “We just wanted to get one with each other. We finally got one.”
GAME NOTES
Five teams from District 2-3A made it to the Class 3A playoffs. They combined to win 14 games. Three of the five combined losses came to opponents inside the district (Robertson beat Santa Fe Indian, St. Michael’s and West). The only 2-3A team to lose to a nondistrict opponent was Raton, the 15-seed, which was swept in the opening round by No. 2 East Mountain. … The West Las Vegas defense committed four errors in Saturday’s game. … King had an RBI double in the fifth inning. He might have been able to stretch it to a triple had he not gotten a leg cramp while rounding first. Trainers helped him off the field and teammates gave him the time-honored remedy for charley horses: Pickle juice. He downed a sandwich-bag full of it and returned to the game. … The game was played on the University of New Mexico’s home field, and by time the first pitch was thrown at 3 p.m., most of the 1,000 seats in the main grandstand were filled.