The Bayfield High School baseball team couldn’t find the offensive production at the plate to keep pace and dropped its first two games of the Greenway Festival tournament in Phoenix.
The Wolverines opened the tournament Monday with a 17-2 loss to Phoenix’s Thunderbird High School, then fell 9-1 to California’s Oxnard High School on Tuesday.
“The bats started coming around a little bit, but we just couldn’t get a break and find the holes,” BHS head coach Danny Petrie said of the Oxnard game. “We hit it right at them or they made a great play to slow us down when we had a couple guys on base. They just made some good plays.”
Against Oxnard (8-1), BHS gave up two runs in the top of the second inning but answered with a run of its own in the bottom of the inning to make it 2-1. The Wolverines’ run came on a hit from sophomore Ethan Morris, who found a hole to drive in Alec Demko from second base and spark the team.
But Oxnard was only heating up at the plate, as the Yellowjackets piled on the hits and scored seven runs in the top of the third to blow the game open and cruise to the victory.
Oxnard had eight hits, drew six walks, saw three batters hit and four batters reached on Bayfield errors. Oxnard left 13 runners on base.
Against Thunderbird (7-5), the Wolverines (3-2) fell behind 10-0 after the first inning.
Both Bayfield runs came in the second inning, with runs batted in by Andrew Morgan and Kaleb Heck.
BHS was held to one hit and drew three walks in the game. Sophomore Shane Moore recorded a double for the lone hit. Demko and Hayden Farmer scored the two runs for the Wolverines.
Bayfield allowed 13 hits and walked seven batters in the game, and 15 of the Chiefs’ 17 runs were earned.
Bayfield will face Phoenix’s Greenway High School (2-8) at 8 p.m. Wednesday, then will close out the tournament against Idaho’s Meridian High School (3-2) at 11 a.m. Thursday.
Going into the final two games of the Phoenix trip, Petrie said the main focus for the team will be trying to string together more hits to keep up with the high-powered offenses they’ll face.
“The boys are playing well. They’re just seeing great competition and that’s why we came out here, to get better,” he said. “We’re looking forward to the next two games and hopefully we’ll do better with that.”
In a rescheduled game originally slated for the season opener for the Ignacio Bobcats, the team finally met up with the junior varsity Bobcats of Bloomfield on an equally cold day in Ignacio.
After leading 8-2 through three innings, Ignacio saw Bloomfield get back into the game and tie it at 9-9 in the top of the sixth inning. But IHS (2-4) had enough for one more rally to take an 11-9 home win.
Kai Roubideaux started and closed the game on the mound for IHS. He saw only four batters in the first inning, as he allowed three walks and a double before being relieved by Kruz Pardo.
Pardo pitched five strong innings in which he allowed only two hits and three walks. He struck out eight and didn’t give up a run. In the fifth inning, he got out of a bases-loaded jam.
Joe Herrera came on to pitch the sixth inning, and Bloomfield got him for five runs in 2/3 of an inning. He walked two and hit one batter with a pitch, and he gave up two hits. He struck out one and allowed five runs. Adam House got the final out of the sixth inning. He walked one and gave up one hit.
But House would go down as the winning pitcher, as Ignacio scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth. Nate Herrera led off by getting hit by a pitch and advanced to second base on a balk. A perfect bunt from Marcus Chapman put runners on first and third, and Nate Herrera would score the go-ahead run on a wild pitch. Chapman would eventually score on a ground ball out by House.
Roubideaux, who went to third base after being pulled from the mound in the first, was put back on the mound in the seventh inning and got three outs for a save.
Pardo went 1-for-4 at the plate with one run and four RBIs. Trace Lovelace was 2-for-3 at the plate with two runs scored. Lawrence Toledo went 2-for-2 with a pair of walks and three runs scored. Nate Herrera was 1-for-3 with two runs scored.
Ignacio is scheduled to play at noon Saturday against Meeker in Rangely. The Bobcats will then face Rangley at 3 p.m.
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