Rams roll in series opener

Staff writer

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Portales senior Grant Wagner wanted his final home game as a pitcher to be a memorable one. And while it wasn’t perfect, it was very close.

Wagner pitched a two-hit complete game to give the Rams a 7-0 victory over the West Las Vegas Dons in the first of a best-of-three series on Friday.

Portales (20-6) brings a 17-game winning streak into the noon Saturday Game 2. West Las Vegas (14-13) needs a win to stay alive and force a deciding third game.

Staff photo: Matthew Asher

Teammates surround Alex Galvan after he hit a solo home run against West Las Vegas Friday afternoon.

Wagner struck out eight Dons while walking just two batters on 106 pitches. Both hits Wagner gave up were doubles, but no West Las Vegas runner got farther than third base.

“Just making good pitches is my mentality throughout the game,” he said. “I couldn’t be happier for this to be my last game pitching at home. It was a good sendoff.”

Portales coach Dusty Nusser was pleased with his senior’s effort.

“Grant did outstanding,” Nusser said. “We’ve expected that out of him all year. My thoughts haven’t changed at all.”

Wagner also went 3-for-4 with two singles and a double to lead Portales’ 12-hit attack.

Portales jumped out to a 3-0 lead and continued to add runs. Junior first baseman Alex Galvan hit a solo home run in the third inning over the right field wall to give the Rams a four-run lead, and effectively end any chance West Las Vegas had of attempting a comeback.

“The team did great,” Galvan said. “We had a few errors, I had one myself but we’ll clean it up and play better (Saturday).”

In addition to the three errors the Rams committed, they also probably lost a chance to end the game via mercy rule with 11 stranded runners — including two bases-loaded situations ended by baserunning errors.

Nusser took the optimistic approach.

“In order to leave 11 (on the bases) you have to get a lot of guys on the bag,” Nusser said. “So we did a good job in that aspect. We need to work on our baserunning and we can’t run ourselves out of innings.”

With the first game won, Portales will now hand the ball over to junior Emilio Lovato.

“Emilio is very good,” Wagner said. “He’s very talented and works really hard. He’ll compete and work his tail off. He has the same mentality I have. If he does well we should win.”