Rams are fifth at Puentes tournament

RIO RANCHO — A fifth-place finish at an eight-team tournament is better than a fourth- place finish, Rio Rancho High School baseball coach David Gomez agreed, because the fifth-place team has won twice, while the fourth-place team dropped a pair.

That fifth-place game Saturday morning, played against Class 4A’s No. 1 team in the coaches poll, began with a new starting lineup, the loss of sophomore pitcher/first baseman Logan Sunstrom to a possible broken nose, and an out for the Rams on one of Gomez’s unique “trick plays.”

Rams 4, Artesia 3Fortunately for the Rams (12-4), they didn’t need his glove, arm or bat after he literally ran head-on to Bulldogs first baseman in the fourth inning. Although it appeared first baseman Jack Byers, who knocked the ball down along the right-field line and raced to the bag, beat Sunstrom to the bag by a split-second, both players were knocked to the ground; Byers remained in the game, Sunstrom was credited with an infield single and helped off the field and destined for an X-ray.

“When you run into a brick wall like Byers, my goodness,” Gomez added. “It was a good hustle play by both kids.”

He was replaced at first defensively, and his cleanup spot in the batting order didn’t come up in the seventh; Jonathan Buckner was in the on-deck circle when Adrian Varoz’s single to left field scored Noah Serna with the winning run.

The game was knotted at 3 when the Rams came to the plate in the bottom of the seventh. Serna walked, stole second and continued to third on a throwing error by the AHS catcher.

Dean Ellison, the winning pitcher in relief, looked at a third strike before Varoz sent the Rams’ fans happily home.

Matt Cook led the offense, with two singles and a walk; starting pitcher Jacob Lucero had a key sacrifice in the third inning that led to a tie at 1, and a two-run single in the fourth. No other Ram had more than one hit.

As for Gomez’s “trick play,” used a couple times last season, Gallegos was at first, reaching on a fielder’s choice, and Cook was on third with two down in the sixth.

Gallegos took a lead that placed him deeper than the SAHS second baseman would have been, literally daring the Bulldogs to make a play on him, which might allow Cook to score.

Instead, the umpires ruled Gallegos out, and Gomez said he’d make it a point to inform the umpires before future games that his play is a legal one, even though it confuses opponents and fans.

Rams 8, St. Pius X 0Gallegos had a multiple-hit game with an RBI for the winning Rams on Friday.

The Rams scored four times in the third inning, basically putting the game out of reach, and padded their lead with three more in the sixth.

Sunstrom was the starting pitcher “and he pitched well,” Gomez said. The sophomore scattered four singles and picked up the victory.

Goddard 7, Rams 3For the first time since a loss to Clovis in the 2015 Puentes tournament, host RRHS lost in the opening round Thursday afternoon. The Rams had won the tournament in 2024, and had won three of the last four.

To honor their late two-sport standout Sal Puentes, the victim of a fatal automobile accident in Grant County in September 2007, all of the Rams had PUENTES on the back of the jerseys, above their numbers, and the No. 3, which Puentes wore as a Rams shortstop, on the front.

An infield error that could have been turned into a double play, or at least a force-out, helped the Rockets score five times, with three of them unearned, in the third inning.

Those runs were charged to losing pitcher Richie Reiffenberger, who struck out the first four batters he faced in the game and had seven strikeouts and had allowed only three hits before departing with one down in the fourth.

The Rockets added two runs in the sixth off reliever Adan Bustos; Alex Gallegos pitched the final 1 1/3 innings.

With single runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings, the Rams managed to close to 5-3.

RRHS seemed poised to score again in the sixth, with two runners on base and just one out, but Noah Serna struck out as a pinch-hitter and Chase Rivera, who led the Rams with two hits and an RBI, was nailed trying to steal third base to end the threat.

The Rams went down in order in the seventh.

“We got banged up, make a couple of errors, and that took us out of the tournament (winners’) bracket,” Gomez said.

Season’s ‘second half’ underwayAfter opening the District 1-5A season at RRHS on April 1, where the Rams had won eight of their first nine home contests, vs. Farmington on, the Rams visit Volcano Vista at 4 p.m. Friday. Next week, the Rams are home April 8 to face Cibola, then home again Friday to take on Piedra Vista. All four games start at 4 p.m.

The Rams won one of two pre-district games played vs. their rivals, falling to Cleveland in the championship game of the annual Las Cruces tournament on March 15; RRHS beat visiting Cibola 6-2 on March 22 in the semifinals of the Metro tournament.

Heading into the annual Puentes event, the Rams were ranked second in Class 5A behind defending state champ La Cueva, which beat them on March 24, 9-7, in the Metro championship game, played at La Cueva.

“We’ll get to see how good I really am,” Gomez quipped, when asked about his young team’s prospects in district. “We’re Rio Rancho, so we’re always gonna have talent.

“We know we have to find a way to make the mix work (The top-three batters in Saturday’s lineup were a collective 1 for 10). I think Cleveland was in last place in our district (if district records counted), which says something about how tough our district is. And, so, there’s no days off, no doormat, no nothing like that, so every week’s gonna be a battle.”

For those not keeping up with the NMAA’s newest two-year block, Atrisco Heritage Academy was moved out of 1-5A, which acquired Four Corners teams Farmington and Piedra Vista, which had been a former 1-5A competitor.

“Farmington likes to swing it; I’ve heard a lot of good things about their bats,” Gomez said. “PV’s got some arms — a right and a lefty that are both elite, so we’re gonna have our hands full with those two teams.”