Halos take win over Durango at city tourney

FARMINGTON

After a tough loss in the opening round of the 2017 Farmington Amateur Baseball Congress City Tournament, the Halos bounced back in a big way.

They defeated the Durango Demons on Tuesday, 9-6, before falling short to the 4-C Clubsox, 23-2, on Monday. They advanced in the loser’s bracket where they met the Flatbills on Wednesday. Results were not available by Wednesday’s press time.

Halos head coach Pedro Tom said a well-balanced game earned the win.

He said a bunt by Keeanu Russell brought three runners in when his team had the 6-4 lead at the top of the seventh inning.

“That squeeze play went and saved us,” Tom said. “Because of that we went and scored three runs and that pretty much helped us out.”

The Halos extended their 6-4 lead to 9-4 after the Demons had one more chance to turn things around. Durango scored two more runs before they closed the game 9-6.

Durango head coach Eric Baker said the game plan was to start as strong as possible, buts things slowly started to slip away in the beginning.

“I think it was just that if we don’t play good baseball any of these teams can beat you (that was the mentality),” he said. “They (Halos) came out strong early in the game and really hitting the ball well.”

Both teams went three-up, three-down in the first inning, but with two outs at the top of the second, the Halos scored two runs to take the 2-0 lead. Durango bounced back quickly with two runs of their own at the bottom of the second to tie the game 2-2.

Halos picked up three more runs at the top of the third to lead 5-2 going into the fourth inning.

They continued to work the bats, scoring a run in the fourth before plateauing for two innings.

Durango closed in on the gap yet again at the bottom of the sixth to trail the Halos 6-4.

Baker said his team final started to get comfortable toward the end of the ball game, but had to play catch up throughout.

“We were just trying to get through the first few innings to see if we could keep them down as much as we can, and see if we can come back,” he said. “It seemed like they got some runs and we’d get even.”

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