{"id":61741,"date":"2014-03-19T20:20:39","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T02:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-baseball-shows-promise\/"},"modified":"2014-03-20T02:20:39","modified_gmt":"2014-03-20T02:20:39","slug":"bears-baseball-shows-promise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bears-baseball-shows-promise\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears baseball shows promise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Dolores
Dolores shortstop Kellen Gatzke makes a diving catch for an out against Pagosa Springs.<\/span>Sam Green\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Kicking off their season with a new manager and several young players, just how good the Dolores High School baseball team would be was unclear.<\/p>\n

Four games into the season, many questions remain, but it appears that this year\u2019s Bears team will challenge opponents day in and day out.<\/p>\n

Bears place second in Cortez<\/p>\n

Opening the Cortez Tournament on March 15 against Montezuma-Cortez High School, the Bears struggled mightily, losing 12-0 to the tournament hosts.<\/p>\n

Although the Bears avoided trouble in the first inning after pitcher Kellen Gatzke mowed down three consecutive M-CHS batters with the bases loaded, things quickly fell apart for Dolores.<\/p>\n

Unable to tie hits together against pitcher Andrew Laymon, the Bears\u2019 offense failed to score runs as the M-CHS offense flourished.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a little tough,\u201d said Bears\u2019 catcher Deano Valdez. \u201cIt was early in the morning and we had to wake up a little bit and get going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wake up the Bears did after their loss to Cortez as Dolores demolished Dove Creek 10-2 in the tournament\u2019s second game.<\/p>\n

Key in the Bears win was the clutch hitting of Ethen Upton, who lined a 2-run double down the third-base line to put the Bears ahead 3-0 early.<\/p>\n

Continuing to pour it on in the second inning, the Bears pulled ahead 5-0 after Guy Wallace trotted home on a wild pitch.<\/p>\n

Although Dove Creek scored two runs in the top of the third inning to cut the Bears\u2019 lead to 5-2, Dolores pitchers locked down and willed their team to victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hit the ball well against Dove Creek,\u201d said Bears manager Rusty Hamilton. \u201cWe saw a little bit different pitching compared to what we\u2019ve been seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a 1-1 record, the Bears finished second in the three-team tournament.<\/p>\n

Bears fall to Pagosa Springs<\/p>\n

Playing against Pagosa Springs on March 18, the Bears fell just short, losing 7-4 in Dolores.<\/p>\n

Key in the Bears\u2019 loss was a tough first inning that saw Pagosa Springs score three runs off Dolores starting pitcher Ethen Upton.<\/p>\n

After Pagosa Springs scored one run in the top of the second inning to extend their lead to 4-0, the Bears battled back, scoring two runs in the bottom of the inning when Andrew Morgan lined a 2-run double to left-center field.<\/p>\n

Unable to sustain their offensive rhythm however, the Bears fell behind 7-2 before scoring their final two runs in the fifth inning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to get our bats going and reduce errors, but we\u2019re doing good,\u201d said Morgan.<\/p>\n

With their record at 1-3, the Bears play March 20 in Farmington at the Piedra Vista Tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

finishes with 1-3 record against tough competition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[188],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-61741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-star"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61741","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=61741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61741"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=61741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}