McCurdy baseball has been here and done that plenty of times before, but not quite like this.
The Bobcats not only needed a win in their final game of the regular season, but also needed to have District 5-2A opponents Peñasco and Questa split their final doubleheader to take the district title for the 11th time in the past 12 years.
“We had to beat Mesa Vista in that last game to give ourselves a chance, and we did exactly that and then it was coming down to Questa and Peñasco,” McCurdy coach Ian Maestas said. “It was out of our hands. But everything worked out in our favor.”
So McCurdy (11-11-1) is heading back to the state tournament after being handed a No. 12 seed and will meet fifth-seeded Rehoboth Christian (16-5) near Gallup at 5 p.m. today (5/6).
“Honestly, I like our chances,” Maestas said. “I think they’re a beatable team. Us coming in as a 12th seed, we will not have a target on our back, so to speak.”
A lot of teams likely wrote McCurdy off after the inexperienced Bobcats lost their first five games of the season. And at times, it looked pretty rough, the coach admitted, although there were signs of fight in the team.
“I would say, to us on the inside, the strength of the team would be their will to not give up,” Maestas said. “There were multiple times throughout the season where we found ourselves down and we’d battle back from large deficits. We didn’t always win the game, but the battle itself was victorious.”
And that helped give the player confidence, he said.
“What the boys started to learn was to believe in themselves and each other,” Maestas said. “And when it got later in the season it paid us back 10 fold when we needed it.”
With nearly a roster’s worth of seniors graduating last year, McCurdy was built behind several strong returning players and a bunch of the school’s athletes who returned to baseball after an absence.
Senior team leader Ethan Bolton is the Bobcats’ top pitcher with a 6-3 record, a 4.29 earned run average and a whopping 101 strikeouts in 47 1/3 innings, while also hitting .339 and driving home and scoring 19 runs.
Junior Ryan Valdez formed the power in the line-up, with 16 of his 28 hits going for extra bases while hitting a team-best .475 with 23 runs and 22 RBIs.
And senior Patrick Lovato hit .340 with 21 runs and 17 RBIs.
Freshman Isaac Corona also added to the offense, hitting .310 with 20 runs and 19 RBIs.
Seniors Marius Sanchez, who scored a team-best 25 runs, and Victor Sanchez-Valdez also were big in providing leadership and just enough offense to keep the Bobcats rolling, while junior Ethan Martinez hit .273 with 14 RBIs.
“The leadership of our returning players … their experience paid dividends down the stretch of the season,” Maestas said. “And the new kids, they all stepped up in a big way. These guys they were instrumental in getting us through the district. It wasn’t always pretty, but we did what we had to do and we were able to win the district.”
Now the Bobcats are hoping that formula is enough to get by the Lynx after being ousted last year in a wild, 11-10 opening round loss to Raton.
“I think they learned that anything can happen,” Maestas said of that defeat. “Even though we weren’t the higher seed, we know we were the better team and it was a game everybody felt that we should have come out on top and we didn’t.”
And while that’s a tough lesson, Maestas is hoping it’s one that McCurdy can apply now.
“I think that helped them see that now, if we show up, anything can happen,” he said. “Of course, we’re not a four or five seed like were just two years ago. But when you have those high seeds, the expectations are immense on these young men. So maybe this approach, that anything can happen and nobody is looking at us, we’re a team with nothing to lose. And teams with nothing to lose are dangerous.”