Staff Report
Chaves County Sports Report
ARTESIA — After struggling through the first week of the season, the Roswell baseball team finally got a chance to show what it could do Saturday, topping Aztec 14-4 in the seventh-place game of the Artesia Tournament.
“For me personally, it felt really good,” said coach Brian Byrd. “I know the kids were really excited about getting that first win, and like I kept telling them, ‘We’re playing well enough, we’re just kind of coming up short, but it’s going to happen,’ and today it did. Things just kind of fell into place.
“We got a great pitching performance from Marcus (Boyd). He threw strikes. Defensively, we played outstanding. Those guys behind him today just played very well and made the plays that we had to and obviously if we keep hitting the ball the way we have been the last couple of games, we’re going to be in pretty good shape.”
While Byrd said the Tigers “just really weren’t very good,” Roswell (4-1) did what it needed to do to win.
Boyd went the full five innings, giving up four runs, three earned; five strikeouts; and only three walks.
Roswell went up 2-0 after one, then 4-0 after two, scoring the second-inning runs with two outs.
“We started hitting with guys in scoring position,” Byrd said. “It didn’t matter if we had one or two out.
Today we were really kind of taking advantage of the opportunity we were given.”
Aztec came back in the fourth to tie it, but that was all Boyd would allow the rest of the game.
Meanwhile, the Coyote bats stayed hot, tallying seven in the third and three in the fifth to earn the mercy-rule victory.
Joe Vale stayed hot at the plate, going 2-for-2 while David Herrera matched that stat and Gabe Garcia went 3-for-3.
“The other kids, they hit the ball well, too,” Byrd said. “That’s one of the things we talked about and told the kids, that no matter what, if you’re at bat, we’ve got to have you hitting the ball. Put it in play if nothing else. Make something happen and today, we got up early.”
Roswell tallied 10 runs as a team, but also took advantage of mistakes by the Tigers.
“They walked a few guys here and there so we were able to be real aggressive on the bases and do some different things, put some runners in motion, which really works to our advantage,” Byrd said.
“Any time we can get people on, we’ve got some kids who can steal bases and things like that. It kind of put the pressure on the other team and they weren’t able to get away from stopping us, so that’s always a plus.”
The Coyotes will get a chance to see if they can stay on the winning side of things Tuesday when they travel to Clovis to face the Wildcats.
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