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Ignacio baseball settles into win over Sargent

IHS baseball controls last 6 innings of win

IGNACIO – Umpires thought Ignacio High School catcher Iaasic Peña leaned into a pitch that hit him in the head Thursday.

Sargent probably wishes they’d let him walk to first.

Peña wasn’t awarded first base for not making an attempt to get out of the way of the pitch. Instead, he turned on the next pitch and sent it over the left field fence for a home run in the bottom of the sixth inning that gave the Bobcats an 11-6 lead.

“I wasn’t trying to hit nothing hard – just tried to make a play on it,” said Peña, son of Kenneth and Shasta Peña.

Ignacio’s first home run of the season put an exclamation point on the Bobcats’ 12-6 win over the Farmers in their home opener at SunUte Field.

IHS (2-2) didn’t start the game with as much fanfare.

Starting pitcher Zach Weinreich gave up four runs in the top of the first inning on two big doubles by Sargent.

“I got behind some batters. The adrenaline got to me – home opener,” said Weinreich, son of Francesca and Ian Weinreich. “I just had to settle down and throw strikes.”

He retired six batters in a row after his initial blowup to earn the win, striking out five.

The Bobcats also started to dial in their offense, as they batted around the lineup in the second inning.

IHS junior Austin McCaw started the inning with a single and hit a RBI-single in his second trip to the plate in the frame.

In between McCaw’s at-bats, Tucker Ward drove in two runs on a single to give IHS a 5-4 lead.

The Bobcats scored the game’s next four runs before Sargent (1-3) got back on the board.

Only six of Ignacio’s 12 runs were earned by Sargent’s pitchers.

“We can’t have that many errors,” Sargent head coach Terry Vanbibber said. “We’re young – they’re learning, but they better learn quick.”

IHS turned to reliever Timmy Plehinger to begin the fourth inning, and he allowed two runs in his three innings of work.

Ward struck out the side in the top of the seventh inning to close the game out for IHS.

The Bobcats struck out 12 as a staff.

“It definitely makes defense a lot easier when you get strikeouts instead of walks,” IHS head coach Robert Miller said.

The Bobcats played nearly their entire roster, as Miller is trying to asses his team’s strengths in non-conference play.

Their next test will be at 11 a.m. Saturday against Durango’s junior varsity in Durango.

“I like the way we’re playing,” Miller said. “Give everyone a fair shot.”



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