After Saturday’s 13-11 loss at San Juan High School on Saturday, the Dolores Bears are still winless for the 2016 season.
But head coach Rusty Hamilton has seen improvement, and he’s hoping to get a notch in the win column on Tuesday in a home contest against Nucla (2-5).
“They’ve been kind of getting beat up like we have against the bigger schools,” Hamilton said. “So I’m feeling optimistic. What I took away from this weekend is that if we play like we did yesterday throughout our league play, we should be in good shape.”
Hamilton said that the team is starting to come together, and he noted that a recent change to the batting lineup has paid dividends.
Even in the loss to San Juan, the Bears’ offense was rolling, plating 11 runs.
Dolores led 6-0 after two innings, but the Broncos scored six runs in the third and five in the fourth to jump ahead.
The Bears put four across in the fifth inning to pull within one, but were held scoreless for the remainder of the contest as San Juan protected its home field.
Brandon Ward started on the mound for the Bears, going four innings and allowing 11 hits. While San Juan scored 11 runs against the Dolores junior, only five were earned.
Freshman Niel Faries closed out the game for Dolores, throwing two innings and allowing three hits and two earned.
The Bears offensive pop was led by freshman Dakota Smith and senior Josh McCoy.
Smith went 3-for-4 on the afternoon with four RBIs and McCoy was 3-for-5 with four runs scored.
Dolores will look to get its first win of the season on Tuesday against Nucla at home at 1 p.m.