{"id":112855,"date":"2015-04-23T23:03:46","date_gmt":"2015-04-24T05:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/defense-shines-bears-split-doubleheader-with-nucla\/"},"modified":"2015-04-23T23:03:46","modified_gmt":"2015-04-24T05:03:46","slug":"defense-shines-bears-split-doubleheader-with-nucla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/defense-shines-bears-split-doubleheader-with-nucla\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense shines; Bears split doubleheader with Nucla"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Kellen
Kellen Gatzke extends to catch a ground ball Wednesday before throwing out a runner at third. Dolores won the first game of the doubleheader with Nucla 6-4.<\/span>Sam Green\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

With his team leading Nucla 6-4 in the sixth inning and a runner at second base, Dalton Madden unleashed a hard fastball and watched as it streak toward home plate.<\/p>\n

Also getting a good look at the pitch was Nucla senior Tim Armintrout, who flicked his bat toward the ball and drove a solid line drive toward right-center field.<\/p>\n

Dolores shortstop Kellen Gatzke then dove to his right, fully extended and backhanded the one-hopper before climbing to his feet and throwing a Nucla runner out at third.<\/p>\n

Just like that, a potentially disastrous moment turned into a highlight of the Bears\u2019 season after Madden retired the next four batters and the Bears secured a 6-4 victory in the first game of a home doubleheader on April 22.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made some great defensive plays and pitched well,\u201d Madden said. \u201cThe whole lineup was hitting the ball, and that allowed us to put up some runs and feel comfortable in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most important offensive sequences for the Bears occurred in the bottom of the fifth inning when Stetson Hamilton was hit by a pitch and later scored to put his team ahead, 5-4.<\/p>\n

The Bears scored a second run later in the inning when Guy Wallace drilled a line drive off Armintrout, allowing Gatzke to score after Nucla threw the ball to first base.<\/p>\n

Dolores first baseman Kitty Wallace\u2019s ability to dig several throws out of the dirt at first base also proved critical in her team\u2019s victory and after the game, the junior talked about the Dolores defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re playing pretty solid defense, but we need to work on calling the ball more,\u201d said Kitty. \u201cThere is always room to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

The room to improve of which Wallace was speaking became evident in the second game of the doubleheader when errors haunted Dolores during a 9-4 loss.<\/p>\n

Stetson Hamilton started on the mound for Dolores and allowed three runs in the first inning before settling down and holding Nucla scoreless until the top of the fourth.<\/p>\n

After Gatzke pitched a 1-2-3 top of the fourth inning, Nucla scored three runs in the top of the fifth to seize a 6-2 lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first inning that I pitched, I came out really strong,\u201d said Gatzke. \u201cThe second inning Nucla was getting some good hits and in the third inning that I pitched, some errors got us down. Nucla got some good hits and you have to give them credit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dolores hitters were stifled by Nucla starting pitcher Graden Steffan, who pitched all seven innings in his team\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we would have kept our bats going, they never would have beat us,\u201d said Gatzke.<\/p>\n

With the loss, Dolores dropped to 7-6 on the season. The Bears play next on in Ignacio for a doubleheader on May 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to miss a day of practice,\u201d said Madden. \u201cWe\u2019re all going to come out and work hard and improve on the things that we know that we need to improve on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gatke’s diving stop, Madden’s pitching highlight win<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6362],"tags":[188],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-112855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ds-sports","tag-dolores-star"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112855"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=112855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}