Walkoff Grand Slam Lifts Eagles

The La Cueva Bears on Wednesday made it look routine. That’s usually a bad sign for everybody else.

Every La Cueva starter had at least one hit by the fifth inning, and the top-ranked Bears’ baseball team methodically dismantled No. 9 Cleveland 9-1 at La Cueva.

“We played well, some things went our way, and we caught a couple of breaks,” La Cueva coach Gerard Pineda said.

Pineda was being polite.

His Bears (13-1) pounded out 17 hits against two Storm pitchers and kept constant pressure on Cleveland (10-6) from the start.

“They hit everything,” Cleveland coach Shane Shallenberger said.

La Cueva got virtually nothing from the top two batters in its order, Nate Bauder and Jeff Deimling, but the back end of the lineup was outstanding.

Brett Worthen, Jeff Ham and Jake Todd (Nos. 7-9) each had multiple-hit games, and both Ham and Todd drove in a pair of runs.

“We hit the ball really well today, and we went to the opposite field,” said La Cueva shortstop Tyler Straub, who like Worthen had a three-hit game.

Cleveland had the first run Wednesday on Josh Casillas’ RBI single in the top of the second.

The Bears answered in the bottom half with RBI singles from Ham and Todd. La Cueva tacked on two more in the third on Shawn Guerrero’s sacrifice fly and another RBI single from Ham.

Later, the Bears added two runs in both the fifth and sixth innings, eventually chasing Cleveland starter Natty Lucero (1-3).

La Cueva starter Grayson Pratt (4-0) consistently pitched with men on base — Cleveland left 10 runners on base — but managed to make the key pitches when he needed to. He went the first five, Kyle Goldfarb the last two. Pratt is vying to be the Bears’ No. 2 starter behind Worthen.

“Today, he was actually a little bit shaky,” Pineda said. “He was erratic, and he was up in the zone. He’s had better days. But we’ll need him come (state) tournament time.”

ELDORADO 11, VOLCANO VISTA 8 (8 inn.): At Eldorado, Thomas Lee Mares’ walkoff grand slam won it for the Eagles (9-5), and the ending was certainly ironic, since Volcano Vista had beaten Eldorado on a walkoff grand slam a year ago.

The player that hit that home run, Andre Vigil, surrendered Mares’ grand slam on Wednesday.

Vigil finally connected for his first home run of the season on Wednesday.
— This article appeared on page D2 of the Albuquerque Journal