Chinle beats Monument Valley in twin bill

CHINLE – It didn’t take long for a little rust to wear off for the Chinle baseball team.

The Wildcats gave up three runs on Tuesday afternoon to visiting Monument Valley in the top of the first frame before Chinle exploded on the offensive end.

The Wildcats scored 16 unanswered runs with nine coming in the third frame en route to a 16-3 win in the first of two games.

In the nightcap, Chinle posted a 12-2 to even its record to 7-7 overall and 5-1 in 3A North play.

“We were a little rusty because we hadn’t played in over a week,” Chinle coach Charles Kimbrough said. “But we’re coming along. We started out slow like everybody else and we’re ready to rock and roll.”

In the opening game, Chinle outhit MV 16 to 4 with senior left outfielder LJ Grey and sophomore midfielder Mackaden Arthur going 3-for-3 at the plate.

The Wildcats also received two hits from sophomore catcher Hage Tsosie and senior second baseman Koen Kee.

“Everybody got to hit,” Kimbrough said. “We had our sticks going and we had all of our subs play except one.”

Tuesday’s game was Chinle’s fifth and sixth region contest while the rest of the league have played at least nine games. The Wildcats are sitting second in the league behind Alchesay, which sports a 9-1 record. The two teams split its series earlier last month.

“We’re starting to get our league games going,” the Chinle coach said while noting that his squad played a few out-of-state teams.

Chinle lost to Montezuma-Cortez (Colorado) by a 6-5 count before taking part in the Farmington baseball tournament. At that eight-team tourney the Wildcats came short Farmington (15-2), Colorado’s Smoky Hill (6-2) and Grants (10-0).

“We did the tournament in Farmington and that was an eye-opener,” Kimbrough said. “They had some top-notched team over there. We went over there with no pitchers. We maxed out our pitchers from the Alchesay game, so we strictly threw freshmen and fielders at the tournament.”

It was at that tournament that Kimbrough found a few extra arms to throw in freshman pitcher Duane Ayze and sophomore Kaleb Guy.

“I’ve got several good pitchers,” he said. “Right now, Duane Ayze and Morgan Mitchell are my top two pitchers. And then I have Koen Kee as a reliever as well as Covington Jones, so I have six solid pitchers.”

Offensively, Kimbrough has some potent hitters with eight batters hitting above .300 headed by Mitchell who has a batting average of .485 followed by Tsosie .421 and Grey .364.

“It’s coming along but everybody has their off days,” Kimbrough said. “We’re doing OK and they’re coming along with their hitting. We’re looking good with our pitching and our defense is solid.

“We do make errors here and there, but we haven’t made them a whole lot lately,” he added. “We have our moments, like most teams do.”

The Wildcats is looking to make at least the play-in game for the Arizona 3A playoffs. Since 2015, Chinle has made that trip eight times in nine years.

“Every year we see ourselves as a playoff team,” Kimbrough said. “Two years ago we didn’t make the play-in game, but we won the region tournament. We didn’t get a play-in game for that, but they changed the rule.

“The winner of the region tournament gets that automatic bid,” he added.

The region tournament will be held April 19-20 at Page High School.

“We’re the defending champions,” Kimbrough said. “We’re looking forward to the rest of our region games, and we’re looking forward to the playoffs.”

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