Nate Hale slides home to score a run for Cochise on Sunday night at Suplizio Field.
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — The Cochise baseball team lost its opening game of the Junior College World Series on Sunday night 2-1 to Neosho County Community College of Kansas. The loss drops Cochise to the losers bracket and into Tuesday’s 11 a.m. MST game against the loser of game nine between Spartanburg Methodist and Connors State. Neosho plays Tuesday evening against the winner of game nine.
“I’m ready to play right now,” said Cochise head coach Todd Inglehart,” I’m sure the guys are, too. They want a do-over. It’s a tough stage. It was tough for them, too, obviously. But we’ll come back, we’ll pitch it again, we’ll play defense again, and it’ll come down to whether we can execute. We have 48 hours to figure it out.”
Cochise put a run on the board first in the top of the fourth when leadoff batter Nate Hale walked, moved to second on a sacrifice bunt and slid into home on a hit by Frank Salas. Neosho answered in the sixth with a one-out RBI double by Jake O’Brien to tie it at 1-1.
In the seventh, Cochise loaded the bases only to see the inning end on a foul ball that Neosho second baseman Justin Warne caught despite falling over Cochise’s bullpen. In the bottom of the eighth, O’Brien got his third hit of the night: a solo home run over the Whitewater Building Material billboard in left field.
“These are the worst games to lose,” said Cochise starting pitcher Xavier Altamirano. “You’re pitching your heart out, and it’s the offense that we need.”
The freshman from Douglas pitched the complete game, giving up eight hits, a walk and striking out eight.
“I’m really proud of X. Pretty good for an 18-year-old freshman,” Inglehart said. “But I think the moment got a little too big for some guys. They forgot who they are offensively, trying to do too much at the plate. The biggest thing is remembering how we got here and doing little things offensively. Just better at-bats.”
The Apaches finished with four hits, three of them by Salas. Altamirano said he’s confident the team will regroup today and be ready for Tuesday’s must-win game.
“This is nothing new to us,” he said. “The same thing happened at Western Districts. We lost the first game of the championship and had to win the next game. We’ve been in situations like this before.”