Strong start pushes Garden City past Trinidad State

By Mike Pilosof

Photo by Adam Shrimplin

Albuquerque, NM-The Broncbusters used a strong start to hold off Trinidad State in the final game of the New Mexico Classic.

Jake Barber finished 2-for-3 at the plate with two RBI, Jacob Douglas picked up his first win of the year, and Garden City beat Trinidad State 7-5 Sunday afternoon.

The Broncbusters started quickly, scoring a pair of runs in the bottom of the first. Corbin Truslow slapped an RBI single, and Sean Klein came across when Christian Lopez misplayed Brett Thompson's sharp liner at third.

The Trojans fought back to tie the game in the second before Jake Barber ripped a two-run single in the bottom half followed by Truslow, who knocked in a run when he grounded into a double play to push the Broncbusters in front 5-2.

After Trinidad State cut the lead to one in the third, Griffin Brunson smashed an RBI double in the bottom of the inning; then came around on Dylan Rodriguez's run-scoring base hit to make it 7-4.

The Trojans made it a game again in the fourth, scoring on Ivan Arce's grounder up the middle that sliced Garden City's lead to 7-5.

That's when the bullpen took over.

Steve Ramos worked a scoreless fifth, and Luis Padilla worked around a one-out single in the sixth. In the seventh, Trinidad State had the go-ahead run at the plate with two outs, but Ramos got Dylan Munroe to fly out to end the game.

Douglas gave up four earned runs on eight hits in four innings for Garden City, who won for the eighth time in their last nine games. Truslow, Brunson and Rodriguez all collected multi-hit games.

Reid Baty was the losing pitcher, yielding seven runs on seven hits in just 2.2 innings.