Roosevelt County slips by Clovis

CLOVIS — The Roosevelt County All-Stars got off to an early lead and rode solid pitching to beat Clovis 5-3 on Sunday night for the District 3 Juniors division tournament championship game at Brady Field.

Roosevelt built leads of 3-0 and 5-2 early in the game and held on behind the combined pitching efforts of Ricky Lovato, Michael Trujillo and Will Genitski.

Roosevelt, which beat Clovis 17-12 earlier in the tourney and finished 3-0 in the three-team event for 13-14-year-olds, advances to state competition beginning on Friday in Hobbs against an opponent to be determined.

The Clovis team advanced to the finals with a 20-15 win over Quay County on Saturday night in Portales. Had Clovis won Sunday, it would have forced a second game with Roosevelt for the championship.

Wes Gilmore and Tom Sullivan each went 2-for-4 for Roosevelt. One of Gilmore’s hits was a double.

“I thought our pitchers pitched well,” Roosevelt manager Tom Gilmore said. “Early in the game I thought we hit the ball good, but they (Clovis) were making the plays.

“We have a pretty good corps of players that’s stayed together since they were 9 or 10 years old.”

Clovis was limited to three hits in the contest, but stayed close thanks to a complete-game pitching effort from James Tyler.

“He did a good job,” Clovis manager Gilbert Salguero said of Tyler. “We had some errors that hurt us.

“It was a good game. They (Roosevelt) hit the ball when they had to. They played a good game, and they had good pitching.”