SHS baseball and softball teams play first tournaments
Sweetwater High School’s softball and baseball teams went to Abilene and Brown County, respectively, to play their first tournaments of the 2021 season.
Softball at Abilene tourney
Sweetwater, which plays at Merkel at 4:30 p.m. today, won its last three games at Abilene’s tournament as the team went 3-2 overall.
The Lady Mustangs (4-2) lost to Abilene Cooper 9-1 and Wylie 2-1 to begin the tournament Thursday, but didn’t lose again. On Friday, Sweetwater rallied to beat Clyde 3-2 before ending the tournament with wins over Jim Ned (6-2) and Merkel (1-0) on Saturday.
Seven errors were a factor in the loss to Cooper, as all nine of the Lady Coogs’ runs were unearned. Sweetwater out-hit Cooper 6-3 and held a brief 1-0 lead until surrendering six runs in the fourth inning and another three in the fifth.
Sweetwater also led 1-0 until Wylie got the only two runs it would need in the bottom of the fifth.
Victoria Martinez singled and eventually stole home for the Lady Mustangs’ run after moving to third on a single by Jazzy Villa and ground ball out.
Sweetwater’s luck began to change Friday against Clyde when it scored three runs in the sixth inning to wipe out a 2-0 deficit for its first tournament win.
A base-loaded single by Shelby Dent was the game winner. Sweetwater tied it on an RBI single by Kendall Daniel and bases-loaded walk by Kyla Daniel.
Winning pitcher Ellianna Perez went all six innings, allowing just one hit while striking out five.
In Saturday’s first game, Sweetwater trailed 2-0 early before tying it in the third and then scoring four runs in the fifth inning to defeat Jim Ned. Villa finished with three hits and Jenika Fuentez — who drove in three runs — and Kendall Daniel had two hits each. Fuentez scattered four hits and was the winning pitcher.
Perez scored the only run vs. Merkel, singling in the fifth and scoring on a twoout double by Martinez. She was also the winning pitcher, giving up three hits with six strikeouts in 5.2 innings. Merkel had runners at second and third with two outs in the sixth inning but the time limit ended the game to give Sweetwater a win.
Baseball at Bangs tourney
Sweetwater (1-4-1) got its first win Saturday, the final day of the tournament, by beating San Angelo TLCA 10-1 and just missed a second win later that day when Bangs rallied for a 5-5 tie after Sweetwater led 5-0.
Sweetwater began by losing to Breckenridge 11-1 on Thursday, and also lost on Friday to Jim Ned (7-1) and Andrews (6-2) before going 1-0-1 Saturday. The Mustangs had not scored more than two runs in a game before Saturday.
Sweetwater trailed 1-0 vs. TLCA before scoring all 10 of its runs over four innings to get the victory at Brownwood. Darian Carr and Ector Martinez had two hits and Martinez scored three runs. A.J. Phergson had three RBIs. Thomas Hernandez pitched a complete five-inning game for the Mustangs for the win.
Against Bangs, Sweetwater scored two runs in the first inning and three in the fifth to take a 5-0 lead until the Dragons tied it with five runs in the seventh inning. The runs all scored with two outs. Martinez had two hits and two RBI at the plate for the Mustangs.