Rio Rancho sweeps Cats in best-of-3

RIO RANCHO – Seeded 15th, Clovis High’s baseball team gave No. 2 Rio Rancho a run for its money in their Class 5A opening-round best-of-three series over the weekend.

In the end, the Wildcats came up short, dropping a 2-0 decision to the Rams in Saturday’s second game, winning the series 2-0.

Rio Rancho (24-4) advanced to a 10 a.m. Thursday quarterfinal matchup at Jennifer Riordan Spark Kindness Sports Complex in Albuquerque against seventh-seeded Carlsbad (21-7), which completed a sweep of Centennial on Saturday by edging the Hawks 8-7 in eight innings.

Senior right-hander Jayden Jameson gave the Cats (13-14) a chance on Saturday, allowing just one earned run and five hits over six innings. But the offense didn’t mount much against sophomore right-hander Casen Savage, who scattered five hits over six frames with one walk and seven strikeouts.

“The last two outings, Jayden was unbelievable for us,” CHJS coach Richard Cruce said. “Really, in the last four he’s been good.

“Today, he did everything we needed him to do.”

The Rams took the lead in the first, taking advantage of a couple of Cats errors. In the sixth, senior Nick DiGregorio singled and eventually scored on a single by senior Dylan Macias.

Sophomore left-hander Dean Ellison threw a perfect seventh to nail down the win.

Senior Nathan McIntosh led Clovis on offense, going 2-for-3 with a double.

Overall, Cruce said, the Cats were competitive this season en route to their first state berth in six years.

“At the end of the day, it was a decent year,” he said. “This weekend was a microcosm of who we are. If we played good baseball, we had a chance to be a good team.”

Rio Rancho 12, Clovis 2 (Friday) – The Cats were in the game, closing to 4-2 on an RBI double by senior Gabe Tapia in fourth, but Rio Rancho erupted for eight runs in the bottom half and ended it on the 10-run rule after the top of the fifth.

“We beat ourselves,” Cruce said. “We were in the game until the fourth inning.”

The Rams outhit CHS 10-5, led by DiGregorio with 3-for-3, a double and a bases-loaded walk. Senior pitcher Dylan Archuleta put Rio Rancho in front 2-1 with a two-run triple in the first, finishing 2-for-3 with three RBIs, and he went four innings on the mound, allowing all five Cats hits.

Senior Bernie Lopez was 2-for-3 for the Cats, hitting a double in the first and coming home on a single by senior Jasiah Mendoza.

Senior Sean Vigil hit a two-run single for the Rams in the fourth, while sophomore Wyatt Tinker went 1-for-2 with a double and hit a pair of sacrifice flies.