It was opening day this past Tuesday for the Yuma High School baseball team.
It was a beautiful day for the Outlaws’ opener against Merino, at the YHS diamond. The opener was not pretty as the Outlaws lost 13-4, but they rallied for an interesting 14-13 win in the night cap as the sun set over the western horizon.
Yuma baseball struggled for much of last season, but finished on a bit of a roll, including making a run to the regional finals and barely missing advancing to the Class 2A tourney in Pueblo.
“It’s pretty exciting,” head coach Brady Nighswonger said. “We made a run at the end of last season and get most of those players back.”
Junior Silas Baucke was not available Tuesday, recovering from an injury suffered during the football season. However, he could be cleared for pitching and playing in the field when he visits the doctor next week.
As for now the pitching staff includes sophomore Reyli Trejo, senior Hugo Montes, freshmen Lennox Huwa and Alex Pensado, and senior Angel Escobar. (Sophomore Brody Sheffield did not go out for baseball this year after having a strong freshman campaign.)
The opening day lineup included junior Jonathan Thomson at catcher, Caden McCreath at third base, Pensado at shortstop, sophomore Marvin Duarte at second, and senior Carson Lynch at first. In the outfield were Montes in left, Escobar in center and Huwa in right. Nighswonger said seniors Braden Brunk and Carlos Wario will be seeing time as a designated hitter, and sophomore Tanner Himes also is in the mix for playing time.
Others on the team are junior Adrian Carranza, sophomore Luis Dominguez, freshman Maddox King, and sophomore Ramiro Escobar.
The program has enough players to get in junior varsity games whenever possible.
The Outlaws opened Tuesday against a Merino team that swept Yuma last year and finished with a 16-5 record.
Yuma escaped with a split this time.
Not much good happened for the Outlaws in the opener as four errors helped the Rams win by nine runs despite getting just four more hits, 12-8.
Escobar reached base on an infield single and scored in the first inning, and the Outlaws scored again in the third to trail 5-2. However, Merino scored four in the top of the fourth, outscoring Yuma 8-2 over the last four innings.
Trejo started the game on the hill for Yuma, and Huwa and Duarte also took the bump, combining for nine walks while striking out only three.
Yuma kept the strikeouts down to six, but managed just one extra-base hit, a double by the freshman Huwa.
Trejo had two hits, two RBI and one run scored, Huwa two hits and two runs, A. Escobar two this and one run, Carson Lynch one hit and one RBI, and Montes one hit.
Predictably early in the season, the nightcap turned into an offensive-palooza. The teams combined for 27 runs in the Outlaws’ 14-13 win. Merino still outhit Yuma by four, 13-9, but the visitors committed six errors to only two for the Outlaws.
The miscues, and timely Yuma hits, helped the home boys take an 8-2 lead after two innings, and pushed across four more in the third after Merino had scored seven in the top half, staying ahead 12-9.
Merino outscored Yuma 4-2 the rest of the way, including plating two in the top of the seventh.
However, the Outlaws were able to get the final out as dusk turned to darkness to escape with the split. (There are not any lights on the YHS baseball and softball fields for the time being.)
Yuma had two doubles among their hits in the aptly-named nightcap.
Trejo had two hits with a double, two RBI and one run, Montes two hits, two RBI and one run, Thomson two hits, two RBI and two runs, Lynch a double, two RBI and three runs, Escobar one hit and one run, Huwa one hit and four runs, and Duarte two runs.
Escobar gutted out the last four innings on the hill, allowing only two earned runs on just three hits, while striking out two and walking three. Montes went the first three innings on the bump.