The Eastern New Mexico News - Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Elida’s Thomas West scrambles back to second base as Texico shortstop Aaron Vaughan can’t corral an errant pickup off. during the fourth inning of Tuesday’s game at Brady Field. CNJ photo by Rick White.

Justin Loven has pitched well this season. He’s hit well this season. The problem is he hasn’t done both in the same game.

The Texico senior took a major step toward ending that troubling trend in Tuesday’s 18-3 win over Elida at Brady Field.

Relying almost exclusively on his fastball, Loven blanked Elida for four innings and collected three hits at the plate as Texico stayed unbeaten in District 7-1A/2A.

“I feel a lot more comfortable,” said Loven who allowed one hit while striking out eight and walked none. “I think early in the year I was concentrating too much on pitching.”

After a weather-induced week layoff in which three games were rained out, Texico won by the 10-run rule for the second-straight day.

Texico beat Dora 11-1 Monday.

The Wolverines (8-1, 4-0 district) broke Tuesday’s game open with eight runs in the second inning and five more in the third.

Aaron Vaughan’s two-run double was the big blow in the second and Ricky Fuentes contributed a two-run single in the third.

“We’ve been scoring some runs early and that’s been helping us out lately,” Texico coach Rich Luscombe said. “We only scored one in the first but we came back and got it going in the second.”

Elida (1-4, 0-2) scored three times off reliever Bryce Bailey in the fifth on two hits and two walks. Thomas West’s double to left-center scored all three runs.

Logan Brown added three hits and Braden Vaughan collected a pair of doubles in Texico’s 16-hit attack against two Elida pitchers.

“We were pretty overmatched today,” Elida coach Jimmy Dale Ward said. “In cases like this we just have to keep our heads up and keep going.”