Shaking off some rust in their first action of the season, the Ignacio Bobcats were satisfied after their trip to Farmington.
Ignacio took an 8-7 win against the Durango High School freshmen team thanks to a walk-off hit from Bo Ward that scored Iaasic Peña and Tucker Ward.
The win gave IHS a 2-1 finish in the three-day Piedra Vista Invitational junior varsity tournament. The Bobcats took a 13-10 win against Farmington’s JV on Thursday but lost 10-0 to Shiprock’s varsity Friday.
“The guys are a little rusty. They didn’t have a whole lot of practice prior to the tournament,” said IHS head coach Lupe Huerta, who referenced the five players who just returned this week after they finished the basketball season in third place at state.
“I am happy with them getting back into the swing of things. They were hungry to get as many cuts as possible, and they stayed late to take extra grounders in practice all week. They want to get back into it quick.”
IHS led Saturday’s game most of the way before the Durango freshmen claimed a 7-6 lead in the top of the seventh inning.
“We made a couple of mistakes, and they had some good hits and took the lead. We had to come back in our last at bats and win it,” Huerta said.
Bo Ward pitched three innings for IHS, and Tucker Ward finished the last four innings to earn the win.
“Bo did pretty good, and then his younger brother pitched well, too,” Huerta said. “The other two games of the tournament, I pitched mostly freshmen to give them experience pitching against kids closer to their age. We need those freshmen to help us out all season, so it was good to see how they responded.”
IHS has a short turnaround before facing Sargent at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
“We only have one practice, and then we are right back at it. The kids are going to have to shake off rust in games,” Huerta said.
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