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Patriots shut out Farmington, 1-0

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MHS BEATS Alamogordo THURSDAY

UPDATE: The Miyamura Patriots beat No. 1 seed Alamogordo May 11 at St. Pius X. They won 2-1 and  advance to the semi-finals, taking them one step closer to the state championship.

The Miyamura Patriots beat the Farmington Scorpions 1-0 in a third and decisive game May 6 to advance to the second round of the 5A state baseball playoffs.

The No. 8 Patriots advanced to play No. 1 Alamogordo (23-5) May 11 at St. Pius X near Rio Rancho. The Tigers have won eleven straight games and beat Bloomfield (11-17) last week to get to the second round game. The last loss by the Tigers was 7-3 against Santa Teresa.

Played before a capacity crowd at Miyamura High School, Saturday saw two games played by Miyamura and Farmington. Miyamura (16-10) lost the first game 8-2 in the weekend best-of-three state playoff series.

“This was a very good effort with respect to defense and pitching,” Patriots’ head coach Brian Silva said. “We will take that same approach into the Alamogordo game.”

The game started off slow and each team seemed to be concerned with defense. The Scorpions (14-15) couldn’t get hits off of Patriots’ starter and the left-handed Matt Chavez. Chavez was steady in the early innings, retiring the first three batters on strikes.

Senior Dan McDonald scored in the bottom of the first on a base hit by sophomore Jay Cordova and the momentum swung Miyamura’s way. The hit appeared to catch Farmington starting pitcher Joseph Mihelich off guard.

Cordova was equally adept on defense, making consecutive diving stops from the shortstop position as was two cases against Danny Carpenter of Farmington. Miyamura third baseman Will McKinley was superb in the latter innings, on one play stopping a line drive by Farmington’s Dominic Hines. The play was another momentum booster for the Patriots.

Both teams were continuously steady in the third and fourth innings with Farmington getting a couple of hits, but not much more against a stingy Miyamura defense and Chavez.

“They played very good defense in the third game,” Scorpions’ head coach Sean Trotter said. “We weren’t able to sustain a lot of what we had going in the second game. But give Miyamura credit. They have a good team.”

Chavez struck out four and walked two in the decisive game. He gave up just four hits in Saturday’s second game. Miyamura had no errors in that game.

In the previous game that Farmington won 8-2, Brandon Vidal scored on an infield error in the third inning, but Farmington went ahead 7-2 in the fifth with four straight runs.

“It was a very close game,” Miyamura fan and Gallup High graduate Jim Chase, 25, said afterward. “The last day game was very good.”

By Bernie Dotson 
Sun Correspondent