{"id":125813,"date":"2026-04-22T12:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T18:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-take-down-bulldogs-in-season-series-rubber-match\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T12:36:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T18:36:23","slug":"bears-take-down-bulldogs-in-season-series-rubber-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-take-down-bulldogs-in-season-series-rubber-match\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears take down Bulldogs in season series rubber match"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dolores
Dolores junior Declan Warren chats with Dove Creek freshman Lochlan Stowe during a contest between the Bears and Bulldogs at Joe Rowell Park on Monday. Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

With both teams lining up rosters filled with players returning next season, the 2026 season series between Dolores and Dove Creek offered a preview of what fans can expect in years to come.<\/p>\n

The Bears bounced back from Dove Creek\u2019s 2025 three-game sweep of Dolores by taking two of their three meetings this spring, including a 16-6 victory Monday afternoon at Joe Rowell Park.<\/p>\n

Dolores (6-8) jumped out early with three runs in each of the first two innings before the Bulldogs finally got on the board with two runs in the third.<\/p>\n

Freshman Kooper Thomas led Dolores with four hits and three RBIs, while juniors Gus Vaughn and Levi Hampton combined for six hits and eight runs scored.<\/p>\n

After Dove Creek (4-10) pulled within 7-4 in the top of the fifth inning, the Bears answered with three runs in the bottom half and put the game away with a six-run sixth inning to invoke the 10-run mercy rule.<\/element><\/p>\n

Dove Creek freshman Kycen Gritz paced the visitors with three hits, including two doubles, and junior Cael Beanland added two hits.<\/p>\n

Dolores senior Tristan Adie drove in two runs, and DCHS junior Konner Spigner matched the total.<\/p>\n

Hampton started on the mound for head coach Brandon Range\u2019s club and struck out 13. The Bears defense played clean baseball behind him, committing just two errors.<\/p>\n

Dolores returns home to face Center on Thursday, Apr. 23, with a 2 p.m. opening pitch. Dove Creek is set to face Center on Friday morning at 11 a.m. before meeting Nucla later in the day at 3 p.m. at the Soper Sports Complex.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

for Dolores helps hosts take 2-1 advantage in local rivalry, boosts Dolores playoff profile<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":125814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6313],"tags":[38,39,28,37,36,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-125813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports-2","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-dove-creek-high-school","tag-headlines","tag-mancos-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125813","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=125813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128406,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125813\/revisions\/128406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125813"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=125813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}