The McCurdy Charter School Bobcats baseball team looks to be one of the top teams in the state. But it will be tough to get a true sense of their strength and potential as a team until much later in the season, given the weakness of their district and the strangeness of the year’s schedule.
But McCurdy coach Roberto DeVargas said he is not concerned about the lack of difficult tests affecting the team.
“They know what to do,” he said.
Halfway through the season, McCurdy baseball has been unstoppable. Through six games, the Bobcats are averaging 16.3 runs per game and allowing just 3.2 as they dominate every opponent they face. They seem unlikely, based on the remaining schedule, to have a real challenging opponent until at least the state tournament, having now defeated all other district opponents.
McCurdy dominated both games of a June 1 doubleheader against Peñasco, winning 18-3 and 22-6.
“Just playing the game,” DeVargas said of his team’s biggest strength. “Playing with a lot of heart. They come to practice, and we take care of business at practice, and it shows on the field.
Junior infielder Marcos Gasca also said that working together at practice translates to in-game success.
The Bobcats were unstoppable on the basepaths, with 35 stolen bases total on the day, including six each from freshman center-fielder Lucas Martinez and sophomore left-fielder Damian Quezada.
In the first game, McCurdy struck right away, with the first three batters reaching base and scoring, including an RBI base hit by Quezada. Five total scored in the first inning, and three more in the second.
Sophomore Markus Martinez was dominant on the mound, pitching a complete game with 11 strikeouts and just one hit allowed on a bloop single to center. The Panthers put just three balls into play the whole game.
In the third inning, Martinez connected on a ground ball to right field that rolled all the way to the wall for an easy three-run home run as part of an 11-RBI doubleheader. The Bobcats added five more runs in the third and fourth innings each to take the easy 18-3 win.
DeVargas said he wants his team to play the same way regardless of the score.
“I let them play baseball,” he said. “I don’t tell them not to run. I don’t tell them not to hit. I keep on telling them to play baseball. They don’t worry about the score.”
Gasca said they sometimes have more fun in the dugout with a big lead, but still know to “handle business” on the field.
Game two
Game two started just the same way, though junior third-baseman Kordero Talachy led off the game with a foul popout, the next three batters all reached and scored, including an RBI triple from Martinez – one of four run-scoring hits he had in the second game.
The second inning was controlled chaos on the diamond. Twelve runs scored in the inning, with the Bobcats walking six times and hitting eight singles in just that inning. They batted around the entire order all with two outs, and could have scored more, but DeVargas told Quezada to sacrifice himself by taking off his helmet to end the inning out of respect.
Pitching-wise, junior Andres Borrego picked up right where Martinez left off, retiring the first seven batters he faced and allowing just three hits in a complete game as part of the 22-6 run-rule victory.
A mud patch in left field around the foul line, after heavy rains earlier in the week, caused trouble throughout the day. Umpires ruled before the games that fielders would be prohibited from going into the mud patch due to safety concerns, with the threat of an immediate forfeit, and any ball that went into that area of the field was ruled a dead ball with every runner advancing one base.
Gasca scored the first eight times he stepped up to the plate in the doubleheader before finally being retired on a popup in his last at bat of the second game.
“I can’t do it without my team,” Gasca said. “They really push me at practice, and push each other.”
Markus Martinez leads the entire state in slugging percentage according to Maxpreps at 1.714, a huge margin over the second-highest at 1.182, and no other player in the state matches his six triples. Martinez also ranks sixth in RBIs in the state across all divisions, despite all of the other players on the leaderboard with at least double the number of games played.
The Bobcats won a doubleheader against Mora on June 4 via forfeit, which DeVargas said was after Mora did not have enough players due to a track meet earlier in the day.
McCurdy, at 8-0 on the season, also played a doubleheader at Questa on Tuesday after presstime. Their regular season wraps up with doubleheaders at Peñasco Friday and against Mora on June 15.