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Thursday, May 22, 2008

Rockets Send Pintos Home

By Harold Smith
Mountain View Telegraph
      The Moriarty High baseball team had a bad day all the way around.
       “You could tell from the beginning that the baseball gods were not on our side,” said Moriarty athletic director Joe Butler as the Pintos and their coaching staff met in a postgame meeting in left field at Eldorado High on Wednesday.
       Third-seeded Roswell Goddard (20-9) eliminated the No. 6 Pintos (19-10) from the state Class 4A tournament with a 14-2 quarterfinal thrashing in five innings. The Rockets — with four home runs, two by Jeremy Kirk — had 12 hits compared to Moriarty's four.
       When it was all over, Pintos senior catcher Jason Watrin looked as if he'd been in a street fight. Both nostrils were plugged to quell a bloody nose, and his upper lip was swollen and had a gash.
       The day was all the more sad for the Moriarty players as Pintos coach Michael Chavez announced his resignation.
       “It's just a different job opportunity,” said Chavez, who indicated he would be moving to Texas.
       The bad karma started when, with two outs in the top of the first inning, Kirk hit a high fly to left field that appeared would be a routine catch, but the wind caught the ball and deposited it just over the fence for a 2-run homer. Goddard's Chris Nuñez followed Kirk at the plate, and though he eventually flied out for the third out, it was his popup near the Goddard dugout that injured Watrin.
       “I didn't think the ball was going to stay in play,” Watrin said. “I didn't know (first-baseman Josh Weaver) was going to go for it. His head hit my chin or my nose, I'm not sure which. I might need stitches on my lip.”
       Weaver crumpled to his knees after the collision, but he quickly got back to his feet while Watrin was attended to by a trainer.
       Still, Moriarty was far from out of it. Pinto Ben Gonzales scored on a Rockets error in the bottom of the first to close to within one.
       But Goddard pummeled Moriarty starter J Stablein in the second inning with six runs aided by back-to-back home runs from Justin Cooper and Kirk to push the advantage to 8-1. Gonzales relieved Stablein on the mound after that.
       The Rockets then put the game away with five runs in the fourth for the 14-2 lead. Goddard's Chris Trujillo hit a 3-run homer, also aided by the wind. The ball sailed well over the left-field fence, the adjacent apartment complex's fence and its parking lot and landed atop a two-story apartment beyond all that.
       Moriarty was led by Watrin, Chris Fischer and Max Ruben, who were each 1-for-2 at the plate. Kirk was 2-for-2 with three RBI.
       Pintos senior Nick Chavez, the coach's brother, said sayonora.
       “I don't know how to explain my time at Moriarty,” he said. “It's a tough one to describe. But if you love baseball, you'll play at Moriarty.”
      
       More Moriarty
       The Pintos defeated 11th-seeded Kirtland Central 22-16 on Friday and 13-3 on Saturday, the latter in six innings, in a state tournament first-round series at the Pintos' Thomas J. Schnell Complex in order to advance to the quarterfinals.
       In the initial contest, Moriarty rallied from a 9-0 deficit with 15 runs in the second inning to beat the Broncos (12-14).
       Ben Gonzales was 4-for-5 with two doubles, seven RBI and scored three runs. Watrin was 3-for-4 with a triple, four RBI, and he scored a run.
       Then in Saturday's game, the Pintos jumped out to a 6-0 lead before a solo home run by Kirtland's Tyrus Warren kicked off a 3-run inning for the Broncos in the top of the fourth to close the gap to 6-3.
       Moriarty, with reliever James Gambling on the mound, then withstood Kirtland's one-out assault in the sixth inning as the Broncos loaded the bases. Clint Harris popped up for the second out as a chilly wind increased, and Gambling escaped by striking out Bruce Holiday swinging.
       The Pintos scored seven runs in the sixth to end it. They pummeled three KC pitchers, Harris, Chandler Joe and Andrew Duncan.
       Stablein blasted the ball to deep center field for a 3-run triple that scored Joe Stidham, Gambling and Ben Gonzales for a 9-3 lead. Nick Gonzales followed with a triple of his own that sent Stablein home.
       “I think in the first game, we kind of underestimated them,” Stablein said. “But after that, we kind of knew what to expect.”
       Nick Gonzales then scored on a passed ball to make it 11-3. Moriarty's Nile Reneker, a pinch runner for Watrin, initiated the game-ending mercy rule when he subsequently crossed home plate on a wild pitch from Duncan.
       “I loved playing for Moriarty,” said Weaver, a 6-foot, 160-pound senior who played first base in the first game of the series. “It was probably the best thing that's happened to me in my life. It's weird that this was my last home game.”
      
       Manzano
       The Monarchs (12-14), the state Class 5A tournament's 15th seed, concluded its 2008 season on a high note.
       Manzano was three outs from forcing a deciding third game with No. 2 Rio Rancho on Saturday in their first-round series. But the host Rams (25-3 after the game) came up with three runs in the bottom of the seventh to erase a 5-3 deficit for a 6-5 victory.
       “Manzano was pretty fired up,” Rio Rancho coach Ron Murphy said. “They had all the momentum.”
       The Monarchs also put up a spirited fight in the two team's first game on Friday, also at the Rams' field. But ultimately Rio Rancho earned a 6-3 win.
       Rio Rancho Journal staff writer James Yodice contributed to this report.
   

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