Yuma High School’s baseball team keeps plugging along as the calendar turns to May, hoping to put it all together before the postseason begins later this month.
The Indians are 7-8 as they travel to Holyoke on Saturday for two against the Dragons, then host Brush for a single game on Tuesday.
Yuma is No. 13 in the Class 2A RPI, as of Friday of this week, two pots behind the Wiggins team they swept Tuesday afternoon, but five spots ahead of a Wray team that beat the Tribe twice. The top 32 will advance to regional later this month, with the top eight each hosting a four-team tournament.
The Indians have been close all season, except for one blowout loss to Merino, usually victimized by one tough inning on defense, and often unable to come up with timely hits with runners in scoring position.
Weather conditions also have been difficult, with the Indians forced indoors for practices on a frequent basis, while also playing most of their games in pounding winds.
It was all on display in last Saturday’s 7-3 loss at home to rival Wray.
Two walks and a double led to Wray taking a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning. However, the Indians escaped further damage thanks to getting two outs on the base paths.
An error-plagued sequence in the top of the third put the Tribe in a 4-0 hole. All three of Wray’s runs came on errors. One run was in, and the bases were loaded with two outs when Yuma attempted a pick-off at second base. The ball squirted into center field, allowing the runner to score. Then the throw to third to try to get the runner advancing from second skipped to the fence, allowing another run.
The Indians battled back in the top of the third. Kobe Rayl led off with a single up the middle, followed one out later by Silas Baucke drawing a walk. Both scored on Jose Ruiz’s two-out triple to center, pulling the Tribe to within 4-2.
However, Wray came right back with three runs off of three singles and a double.
Wray’s bats were kept quiet over the last three innings, but Yuma could muster only one more run, which came in the sixth when Victor Perez doubled to right and eventually scored on an error.
Wray had just one more hit than Yuma, 7-6. Yuma left nine on base, and Wray six. Yuma had four errors to two for Wray.
Ruiz had the triple and two RBI, S. Baucke a double and a run, Perez a double and a run, Rayl one hit and one run, Hugo Montes one hit and Angel Escobar one hit. Yahir Trejo took the pitching loss, allowing seven hits over 3-1/3 innings, walking three and striking out four. S. Baucke did not allow a hit over the final 3-2/3 innings, striking out five and walking three.
However, the Tribe was able to come through with a key sweep at Wiggins on Tuesday, 3-0 and 7-5, including a gutsy rally in the nightcap to win in eight innings.
The opener was a pitching duel between Yuma’s Silas Baucke and Wiggins’ Taryn Yzagurrie. Both pitched all seven innings, with Baucke coming away with the complete-game shutout for the victory, yielding eight hits but striking out eight and walking only one. Wiggins actually outhit Yuma 8-3, but Wiggins committed five critical errors.
It was a scoreless deadlock when Baucke helped him own cause as the freshman sliced a single and eventually scored on one of those errors.
Yuma pushed across two more in the sixth. Andre Baucke reached on a single, and John Smith hit an infield single. A. Baucke wcored on a bases loaded walk, and Smith on a fielder’s choice. Yuma had a chance to score two more as Kobe Rayl lined the ball up the middle with runners on second and third, and two outs. However, he fell to the ground with a knee injury, and was thrown out at first, erasing the two potential runs.
It did not matter in the end, though, as S. Baucke closed out the complete-game victory. It also helped that the Tribe came up with a rare triple play during the game on an infield lineout.
Rayl, Smith and S. Baucke each had a hit for Yuma, and Adrian Carranza, John Smith and Jonathan Thomson (courtesy running for A. Baucke) scored the three runs.
Wiggins has struggled this season when Yzagurrie is not on the hill. However, the Tigers’ other pitchers kept the Indians at bay for most of the second game, Tuesday.
Yuma took a 2-0 lead after three innings thanks to Angel Escobar reaching on infield singles, then scoring on sacrifice flies by A. Baucke. The Indians made 3-0 in the fourth when Smith reached on an error, stole second and third, and scored on Conner Lynch’s groundout.
However, the Indians had one of those bad innings in the field in the bottom half, as three errors, two walks and two singles led to a five-run outburst by the Tigers.
Yuma got back one run in the sixth when Carranza was hit by a pitch, then eventually scored on an error. The Indians then tied it up in the seventh when A. Buacke led off with a single. Pinch-hitter Victor Perez then drove in the tying run with a double to right.
A 6-4-3 double play helped snuff out a potential Wiggins rally in the home half, sending the game into extra innings.
The Indians picked up two runs in the top of the eighth for a 7-5 lead.
Wiggins got two runners on in the home half, but the game ended on a ground out back to the pitcher, as Yuma escaped with the sweep.
Yahir Trejo went 7-1/3 innings on the hill to get the win, throwing 113 pitches in the process. He struck out seven and walked two. He allowed five hits, all singles, but all five of Wiggins’s runs were unearned. Lynch came on to get the last two outs for the save, striking out one and yielding one hit.
Escobar had three hits and two runs, A. Baucke two hits, two RBI and one run, S. Baucke one hit and one run, Thomson one run, Jose Ruiz one hit, Smith one run and one RBI, Perez the double and one RBI, Lynch one hit and one RBI, and Carranza one run.
