The Ignacio Bobcats took a split in their first baseball doubleheader of the season Saturday, but the potential loss of a pitcher may have been the worse loss of the day.
After a 14-8 victory in the morning game at Dove Creek, the Bobcats (7-5, 0-2 San Juan Basin League) handed the ball to senior pitcher Bo Ward, who had just pitched six innings in a marathon 27-17 game Thursday night at Pagosa Springs.
Ward didn’t make it out of the first inning Saturday, pulling himself because of pain in his throwing shoulder.
“He tweaked his shoulder a bit. He is one of my big guns, but he couldn’t go past the first inning,” IHS head coach Lupe Huerta said.
IHS used three more pitchers the rest of the game and eventually lost 12-5 to the Bulldogs (3-11).
Bo Ward’s younger brother, Tucker Ward, earned the win in the day’s first game for IHS. He pitched a complete game. He had five strikeouts, and three fielding errors behind him accounted for a few of Dove Creek’s runs.
It was a tight game through five innings, but the Bobcats scored four runs in the sixth and five in the seventh inning to establish a big lead.
Tucker Ward was 4-for-5 at the plate in the game with a pair of runs batted in and five runs scored.
“Tucker, Anthony Manzanares, Bo Ward and Adison Jones all came through with a couple of runs and some big hits,” Huerta said. “We also had a lot of solid baserunning.”
Huerta got on his team after the fifth inning about taking a defensive approach at the plate, and he said the team responded by batting more aggressive the rest of the game.
After Bo Ward exited the mound in the second game, Ralph Herrera, Clayton Jefferson and Rain Rosa all took turns pitching.
“They didn’t do too bad. None of them have really pitched much for us. Dove Creek made good contact and hit the ball in some holes, and you could tell they came to play in the second game,” Huerta said.
Herrera and Manzanares were the best Bobcat hitters in the second game, Huerta said. Tucker Ward also added two hits and a pair of RBIs.
IHS will travel Tuesday for another doubleheader at Dolores.
“I think our guys were kind of tired in the second game with it being our first doubleheader of the season. We have another one Tuesday, and those are big games with Dolores, because we lost to them in extra innings earlier this year,” Huerta said.
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