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Thursday, March 27, 2008

Coach's Alma Mater Defeats Lady Monarchs

By Tristen Critchfield
Mountain View Telegraph
    As good as Manzano High's pitching was Saturday, Alexis Sifuentes was better.
    Sifuentes held the Lady Monarchs to two runs over two games as the Alamogordo Lady Tigers took both games of a softball doubleheader at Manzano, 3-2 and 2-0.
    Monarchs coach Arthur Samora, who hails from Alamogordo, said it's fun playing the team from his hometown, even when his team doesn't win.
    "They're rough ones," said Samora of the close losses. "The dynamics of our team have changed. We were missing our shortstop (Amity Livingston)."
    But "no excuses— the girls are supposed to step up," the coach added.
    Defensively, Manzano did step up with the pitching efforts from both Evangeline Samora, the coach's daughter, and Victoria Ramirez. But the offense failed to score a run after the first inning of the opening game.
    Credit Sifuentes for that. The senior pitcher allowed 11 hits and struck out 17 Monarchs over the two-game span.
    "She's going to take them to the promised land," Arthur Samora said. "She moved the ball real well."
    The close nature of the defeats had Manzano thinking about what might have been.
    "It's hard, knowing we could have won," said Monarch Andrea Quintero.
    Manzano (2-9) struggled coming out of the gate in the opening game, allowing two of the first three Tigers baserunners to score before Evangeline Samora settled down and got out of the inning.
    The Monarchs tied the game in the bottom half of the first when Courtney Leslie doubled home Ashley Sanchez and Samora.
    The contest remained tied until the fifth inning, when Sifuentes took advantage of a 3-0 count and ripped an RBI double to center field for what turned out to be the winning run. Manzano stranded two runners in the bottom of the seventh.
    Sifuentes was even more efficient in the second game, shutting out the Monarchs and limiting them to just four hits. Manzano's best scoring chances were hindered by base running errors in the third and sixth innings.
    "We're aggressive on the bases," Arthur Samora said. "Once we get on base we'll run ..."
    That strategy backfired when Ramirez singled, stole second and was thrown out at third in the third inning. Quintero singled with no one on base two batters later.
    Quintero was also thrown out at home trying to take an extra base on an Evangeline Samora single in the sixth inning.
    "We weren't focused," Quintero said of the team's lack of offense.
    Cassandra Jaramillo, who lives in the Sedillo Hill area, was underwhelmed by seventh-ranked Alamogordo (8-4).
    "It gets us ready," she said. "They may be top ranked, but I don't think Alamogordo is that good. A lot of the top-ranked teams are where they are based on last year."
    Jaramillo said her team was thinking too much on Saturday, instead of just being aggressive.
    "Sometimes we're focused and sometimes we're not," she said.
    That lack of concentration might have contributed to a rough start to this season, but Arthur Samora attributes the learning curve to a difficult nondistrict schedule— a calendar that had eight games against top-10 teams, including Cibola, No. 1 in Class 5A, and Farmington Piedra Vista, No. 1 in 4A. Samora hopes it will pay off once district play begins next week.
    PVHS defeated the Monarchs 9-3 at Manzano on March 20.
    "We have to get all the pistons firing," he said.
   
East Mountain
    The Lady Timberwolves (4-0) defeated Mora 20-0 at Vista Grande Community Center on March 19.
    "But we lost our pitcher, Rachel Sanderson," EMHS coach Denise Whipple said. "She got injured (during the game against the Rangers). She'll probably be out about three weeks. The last couple of innings, she played second base, and she collided with their shortstop. She got injured pretty good."
    Whipple wouldn't identify the type of injury.
    "But we have other pitchers," Whipple said. "We still have Aubrie Roots. She carried us last year..."
    The coach said Sanderson might be able to return for the District 2/1A-2A game versus McCurdy in Española on April 10. The T'Wolves' first district contest will be played at Estancia on Tuesday.
    "If we can hit the ball, we should be all right," Denise Whipple said. "If we don't, it could be a close game (against the Bears)."
   
Estancia
    Class 2A's fourth-ranked Lady Bears (2-5) competed in the Cibola County Schools Classic at Laguna-Acoma this past weekend.
    Hope Christian, a 3A team, defeated Estancia 16-1 in the first round on Friday. The Bears beat 1A-2A Rehoboth 19-2 on Friday in the losers' bracket.
    Class 3A Socorro sailed past the Bears 11-1 on Saturday.
   
Moriarty
    The Lady Pintos (5-4), ranked fifth in 4A, defeated Roswell Goddard 11-1 in the consolation-bracket finals of the 16-team Kristin Griego Invitational in Rio Rancho on Saturday.
    No. 4 Aztec blanked Moriarty 6-0 in the first round on Friday. Then in Saturday's first game, the Pintos edged 5A Gallup 8-7.
    Class 5A's eighth-ranked Rio Rancho defeated Moriarty 7-5 in a nontournament game at RRHS on Friday.
    "I think we're looking better," Pintos coach Brett McWilliams said. "We resolved some issues this weekend. We started out making several errors. We made some defensive changes."