TJ Garcia
LA VILLA — This baseball playoff series nearly had it all.
There was hype, quality baseball, dueling Big 12 recruits and even a venue change because of bad weather.
In the end, however, the McHi-Edinburg Vela series boiled down to what baseball’s all about: pitching, hitting and fielding. Both teams put solid arms on the mound, but it was the SaberCats who were able to get more hits than McHi and minimize defensive mistakes to win Game 2 Saturday afternoon 3-1 and sweep the Bulldogs 2-0 in the area round playoff series.
Vela pitcher Isaac Lopez went the distance, allowing just seven hits in seven innings while striking out six and walking none to get the victory for the SaberCats (29-4-2). It vaulted them into the regional quarterfinals where Valley nemesis Laredo Alexander awaits. A rain-soaked UTRGV field forced Saturday’s game to be played at La Villa High School’s new all-turf stadium.
For the second time in two days, Vela struggled at the plate, managing just six hits, but it was able to be strategic, found a few key spots to grab bases and scored playing small ball.
“Any little base hit in these types of games is very important,” said Vela sophomore second baseman Ivan Mendoza, who picked up two hits and scored a run. “A single, double anything we need, anything we can get, is really important.”
The SaberCats were able to manufacture a few runs, while McHi, with nearly the same amount of hits, could not. Saturday’s game — as well as Friday’s contest — were that close. Ends up, UTRGV signee Ramsey Amador’s two-run, third-inning single was all the offense Vela needed. He ripped a 2-1 pitch from McHi pitcher Gilbert Mata to left center and scored Frankie Zuniga and Mendoza.
Mata, a Coastal Bend College signee, pitched well (five hits, seven strikeouts in six innings). However, like on Friday night when Vela scored all three of its runs in the first inning, he couldn’t prevent Vela from making a mini run in the third then allowed it to add another in the fifth. He held a team that was scoring about eight runs a game coming to the series to three. Normally, that might get a win, but the Bulldogs’ bats couldn’t find the ball, and it was their undoing.
SaberCats pitching, along with missed opportunities, may have had something to do with that. After being shut out by Kansas State signee Nico Rodriguez in Game 1, seldom used Lopez confounded the Bulldogs with an array of pitches and induced many of them to ground out or hit harmless pop flies. McHi Coach Eliseo Pompa said McHi (25-10-1) scuffled with offense in both of their playoffs series this year.
“We left the basis loaded three times (vs. Eagle Pass) and yesterday we did the same thing. We just couldn’t get that hit when we needed to,” Pompa said. “I want to wish the Vela SaberCats the best of luck. They’ve got a good ball club. We just couldn’t come through with the hits. Sometimes that’s just how baseball is.”
McHi’s Aaron Nixon and Caleb Killian accounted for four of the Bulldog’s seven hits with two apiece, meanwhile Hector Garcia had the team’s lone RBI when he scored Nixon.
With the area-round victory, the SaberCats extended their winning streak to 16, not having lost since March 9. The win also allows Vela to reach the regional quarterfinals for the second time in three years. Last year, the coach Jaime Perez-led team advanced to the fourth round where Vela succumbed to San Antonio Churchill.