New Mexico upends Garden City
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 12 | 0 |
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0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | X | 10 | 12 | 3 |
By Mike Pilosof
Photo by Adam Shrimplin
Albuquerque, NM-One inning is all it took to wipe away what appeared to be a major comeback for the Broncbusters.
New Mexico broke open a tie game with five runs in the eighth inning, as the Thunderbirds halted Garden City's seven-game winning streak with a 10-6 victory Sunday afternoon.
The Broncbusters struck first in the top of the second when Griffin Brunson singled home Alec Eskenazi to make it 1-0. But in the bottom of the fourth, New Mexico scored four times to take a three-run advantage.
Garden City slowly chipped away, and Brenden Anderson's one-out single in the fifth brought Sean Klein around, cutting the Thunderbirds lead to 4-2. After New Mexico got a run back in the fifth on Angel DeLaCruz's RBI base hit, the Broncbusters drew even in the seventh. Klein smoked a double, Corbin Truslow ripped a triple to left-center, and Anderson blasted a two-run bomb to left that tied the game at 5. The Broncbusters then took the lead on Colin Stone's sacrifice fly.
But the game got away from Garden City in the eighth. Reliever Andrew Sumner inherited a two-on, nobody out jam. He gave up an infield single to Rody Barker to load the bases. Then, Zac Vooletich hit a bloop single over second to score one followed by Carlos Contreras's RBI base hit that made it 7-6. Adrian Torres added a two-run single before Daniel Hernandez's grounded into a double play, scoring Contreras from third to give New Mexico a 10-6 cushion. In all, the first six hitters in the inning reached base.
In the ninth, Garden City put two on with one out. But they could never get the tying run up. Brett Thompson fouled out, and Dylan Rodriguez grounded out to end the game.
Darrian Escobar-Winter took the loss for Garden City, giving up three earned runs on two hits in three innings of relief. Starter Eric Heiman went four innings-allowing four runs on six hits. He fanned three and walked three.
Cade Acrey picked up the win for New Mexico, tossing 2.2 innings of shutout ball. He struck out two and walked one.