<\/p>\n
The Western Slope League has announced its all-conference teams for the 2016 softball season, and two Montezuma-Cortez players were nominated.<\/p>\n
After the Lady Panthers\u2019 6-13 season, senior Gabby Begay and sophomore Morgan Short were named honorable mentions for the Western Slope League\u2019s all-conference team.<\/p>\n
Begay played sparingly last season as a junior, but in her senior year, she stepped up and started at first base.<\/p>\n
\u201cGabby learned a lot the last couple of years. She sat the bench for a while, but she replaced our first baseman from last year and got aggressive,\u201d said M-CHS head coach Angelo Topaha. \u201cShe brought a lot to the table and really stepped into that role and picked up from where we left off last year. She\u2019s just a good kid to coach, and I\u2019ve enjoyed coaching her for the last four years.\u201d<\/p>\n
With stats from 16 games, Begay hit .458 and drove in a team-high 20 RBIs. And while her offensive and defensive contributions were significant, Tophaha praised Begay for her leadership as one of the team\u2019s three seniors.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe brought a good attitude to the team,\u201d he said. \u201cShe was a good inspiration for the younger girls to keep fighting, no matter what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joining Begay as an honorable mention was Morgan Short.<\/p>\n
Short also saw her playing time increase from last season, and with stats from 17 games, she led the Lady Panthers in batting average, hitting .525, and smacked 4 home runs, another team high.<\/p>\n
\u201cOffensively, she\u2019d mix it up,\u201d said Topaha. \u201cShe\u2019d bunt, she\u2019d hit, and once we got her on the bases, she scored 28 runs for us this year.\u201d Which, as Topaha pointed out, was nearly half of her at bats.<\/p>\n
Short\u2019s speed is what made her so dangerous. She legged out bunts for infield hits, swiped a team-high 24 bases \u2013 which was second-most in the league \u2013 and scored 28 runs on the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe knew there were a lot of shoes to fill. She brought an intensity and came with aggression on the defensive and offensive side,\u201d said Topaha. \u201cAnd in the offseason, she knew what needed to be done and she did it. She\u2019s improving, she\u2019s very coachable, and I\u2019m very proud of her for the accomplishments she made this past year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
and Morgan Short named Western Slope League honorable mentions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-68252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68252","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=68252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68252"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=68252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}