Roosevelt knocked out of Tri-County tournament

Quran Wiggins pitched a complete game three-hitter, and Clovis Zia took advantage of Roosevelt County errors for a surprisingly easy 7-2 victory in a losers’ bracket game of the 9-10-year-old Tri-County Minor League All-star tournament at Rotary Park.

Zia will play tonight against Quay County in a 7 p.m. game at Beachum Field. Quay dropped a 15-11 decision to the American All-Stars.

American will face the winner of tonight’s game on Thursday in the double-elimination tournament.

The loss eliminated Roosevelt County.

Wiggins wasn’t necessarily dominant, with six walks and four strikeouts, but he got outs when he needed and held Roosevelt scoreless for the final four innings.

“He’s got a really good arm,” Zia coach Albert Marez said of Wiggins. “He’s a young kid — he gets his nerves rattled but he gets up there and stays tough.”

Roosevelt starter Travis Stobb ran into trouble in the second and third innings, which included six of Zia’s eight hits on the night and five of Roosevelt’s six errors.

Roosevelt jumped out to a 2-0 lead on a two-run single from Andrew Villanueva in the second, but Zia took the lead for good in the third inning when an overthrow to second base allowed Wiggins to score the go-ahead run.

Zia was able to add three insurance runs in the fourth inning with the aid of four Roosevelt County errors.

After allowing a walk to leadoff hiter Leon Mendoza in the sixth, Wiggins ended the game by striking out Caleb Martin and a pair of groundouts.

It turned out to be a “could have, should have, would have, didn’t” night for Roosevelt, manager Rene Marquez lamented.

“We were supposed to step it up and maybe we thought we were just going to slide by this,” Marquez said. “Some nights you’ve got it, some nights you don’t.”