The Bears took their baseball preseason lumps. But the real season has began.
After trailing 3-0, Dolores scored eight of the next nine runs Tuesday afternoon at Joe Rowell Park against Nucla. The Bears hit well and received a compete game on the mound from Cody Carroll en route to a 8-4 home win over the Mustangs.
We had some early errors and we got down. But they showed some character. We battled back, Bears coach Jim Everin said. Twice we were down, and we came back and we got ahead. Besides that one inning, we pretty much played an error free game.
Dolores (2-6, 1-0 2A/1A San Juan Basin League) treated the Nucla (2-5, 0-1 SJBL) game like a new season. That approach proved significant on opening league day.
They showed that weve weathered the storm a little bit. It was a good win for us, Everin said. I thought we had a good performance out of Cody. We made the routine play, we had timely hits.
The Mustangs put one on the board in the first and tacked on two more in the third because of two Dolores errors. With the visitors on top 3-nil, it was the home teams time to respond in the bottom of the third.
Kolton Shull and Richard Belt each had a RBI-walk and sacrifice-fly RBI to get the Bears within one. Trae Leachs RBI-single knotted the score 3-3.
Clint Watt hit Nucla back in front in the top of the fifth with a RBI-single to make it 4-3 Mustangs.
However, it was all Bears from there.
Carroll shut down Nucla, pitching five more strikeouts. He belted a RBI-single in the bottom of the fifth, which was part of the Bears offensive onslaught in the inning. Carrolls hit was wedged between RBI-singles from Stetson Hamilton and Dey Campuzeno, as Dolores took a 7-4 lead into the sixth. All three Bears recorded two hits on the day.
Ethan Upton added an insurance run off of a sac-fly for the Bears in the bottom of the sixth for the final margin.
Yeah, we played as a team today. We came together, said Hamilton, a freshman catcher. We had awesome pitching and we all around had good hits. Its good we started off with a win. Its a good way to start off league (play).
Carroll, a junior, earned his first win of the season pitching. He tallied six Ks and only gave up two earned runs.
Dolores will play on the road Saturday at league opponent Ignacio at 11 a.m.
We just got to have good practice the next few days, Everin said. We got to build on this. We cant take any steps backwards, because weve already been there. We want to try to go forward and get better. We just got to keep moving forward.
Reach Bobby Abplanalp at bobbya@cortezjournal.com.
