Rams get Saturday split

Joshua Lucero: PNT correspondent

Ram sophomore leftfielder Ray Ornelas grabs a fly ball for an out in the top of the fourth inning of the first game Saturday.

Portales survived a wild first-game finish, but the Rams weren't able to put away Bloomfield in Saturday's rain-delayed Class 3A state round-of-16 series.

Eighth-seeded PHS saw a seven-run lead get away in the opener, then scored twice in the bottom of the sixth and held on for an 11-10 win before the ninth-seeded Bobcats took the second game 7-2.

That forced a deciding game in the best-of-3 series at 10 a.m. today at Ram Field. The winner faces top-seeded Hope Christian in a 1 p.m. quarterfinal game on Thursday at Cleveland High School in Rio Rancho.

"We've done that all year, let teams come back on us," Rams coach Arturo Ontiveros said. "They (Bobcats) have given themselves a chance to make a run at it."

Senior Zach Blaeser was cruising with a 9-2 lead when suddenly the wheels came off in the opener. The Bobcats (18-12) used four hits, four walks and an error, getting a two-run single from B.B. Miramontes and a two-run double from Chris Garcia, to chase Blaeser and tie the score.

In the bottom of the inning, though, Jarret Faust reached on a two-out single, Daniel Zapata was safe on an error and freshman Grant Wagner delivered a go-ahead RBI single to left. Zapata then came home on Bloomfield's sixth error of the game.

Blaeser returned to the mound with one run in, two on and none out in the seventh for the Rams (16-10) and got the next three hitters to end the game.

In the second game, first baseman Tyler Barker went 3-for-4 with three RBIs and right-hander Kyle Thompson survived a wild second inning — three hit batsmen, two wild pitches and a walk, but only one run allowed — as the Bobcats evened the series. They scored four runs off Zapata in the top of the fifth to break a 2-2 tie.

The Rams made five errors to none for Bloomfield in the second contest. Three of the seven runs off Zapata were unearned.

Joshua Lucero: PNT correspondent

Ram senior Zach Blaeser rounds third during the bottom of the second inning of the Rams' first game in a Class 1A doubleheader against the Bloomfield Bobcats Saturday afternoon at Ram baseball field. The teams split the two games and will play 10 a.m. today to decide the series.

"The first game was a tough one," said Bloomfield coach Frank DeHoyos, an Eastern New Mexico University graduate and the brother of former Greyhounds pitcher Gabe DeHoyos. "We're usually pretty sound defensively, but that's part of baseball. We handled it pretty well, and I'm proud of that."

Both teams will be pressed in the pitching department today, but Ontiveros and DeHoyos think they have enough to get through it.

"We have a couple of arms left," DeHoyos said. "We know it's just, 'Let's play.' The kids we have will hopefully throw strikes."

Ontiveros was concerned about his team's relative lack of hitting — only nine hits in the two games, including just three off Thompson.

"It's going to be a matter of who has the better No. 3 (pitcher) and who hits the ball," he said. "We're going to have to score some runs. That's going to be the determining factor."