By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
Lopez probably had one of the toughest first halves of district play.
The Lobos were 1-6 in District 32-6A, but one has to look beyond the surface to unearth the real story. Four of those contests were one-run games and a few more they held a lead before failing short.
Lopez is now 3-7 in district play after wins in two straight games.
“Our team knows we’re a good team and in baseball any team can beat another on any given day, anything can happen,” Lopez coach Victor Martinez said. “We try to play hard every inning because you never know.”
The Lobos will try to catch up and chase the final playoff spot, but it will be tough with four games remaining in the district season. Either way, Lopez isn’t going to stop playing.
“We’re trying to work one inning at a time, one game at a time, one win at a time,” Martinez said. “Doesn’t matter if it’s a loss or a win, we just have to keep working.”
That’s something that Martinez has noticed about his team, they continue to fight on every single pitch.
“I’m so happy and proud of my kids, no matter what record we have, they’re still working, they’re still practicing hard,” he said. “It’s a big confidence booster because of this win (a comeback win against Harlingen South) and knowing we’ve been in all these ball games, so that helps the mental part of the game.”
WIN NEEDED
With Hanna’s 4-1 win over Brownsville Veterans Memorial on Tuesday, a couple things came to an end.
The Golden Eagles recent losing streak and the Chargers unbeaten district streak. Hanna (6-4) ended a three-game skid and Brownsville Veterans (9-1) lost for the first time this season in district play.
That and a loss by San Benito puts the Eagles now tied for third with four games to play. But it also gave Hanna some extra confidence.
“It got us back to the belief of what we can do as a team. We can compete, we can play with anybody,” Hanna coach Eddie Garcia said. “We just need to do the things right on the field.”
Garcia said he felt his team was sloppy and going through the motions lately, but that changed during the game against the Chargers and it paid off.
“You have to be 100 percent all the time,” he said. “Baseball is like that, you have to respect it 100 percent of the time.”
Although Garcia wanted his team to be happy about the win, he didn’t want them to “get caught up in the moment.”
“Enjoy it, but we still have a lot of games left,” Garcia told his team after the game. “Nothings done yet, anything can happen, you can’t drop your guard. I’m just glad the real Hanna showed up and hopefully it continues.”
TAKING NOTICE
On the flip side, Brownsville Veterans is hoping to learn from its mistakes against Hanna.
“It might be a wake up call for us,” Brownsville Veterans coach Eric Gonzalez said. “Letting us know that no one is going to roll over and just die for us. People are going to play against us and that’s a good thing.”
The Chargers coach was excited for the way his team is hitting the ball as of late. With the postseason around the corner, that’s never a bad thing. But Gonzalez hoped the loss put things in perspective for his team.
“Hopefully we can take a good positive out of this and gets some more fire in us,” he said after the loss to Hanna. “Let’s try and win out (in district).”
Andrew Crum covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6629 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @andrewmcrum.