Prep Baseball season ends

WINDOW ROCK

The prep baseball season ended on Saturday for the four area schools that made the Arizona Division III state playoffs.

Chinle, Page, Tuba City and Winslow lost their opening round games at the Surprise Sports Complex in Surprise, Ariz.

Tuba City, which earned the No. 24 seed, dropped a 8-0 decision to No. 9 seed Goodyear Estrella Foothills.

Page, meanwhile, played No. 12 seed Wickenburg close for four inning before losing 16-7.

In other first round action, No. 19 seed Chinle came up short against No. 14 seed Tucson Amphitheater by a 15-1 count while Winslow gave Rio Rico fits before losing, 2-0.

Amphitheater 15, Chinle 1

After a 10-year hiatus, the Wildcats were done in by errors as the Amphitheater Panthers jumped out to a 8-0 lead after the first inning.

“We played a pretty good team but we made four errors in the first inning and that is where they scored most of their runs,” Chinle coach Don Kimbrough said. “Our pitcher wasn’t doing too bad but we made some more errors in the second and third inning and it kind of got out of hand.”

Wickenburg 16, Page 7

The Page Sand Devils ripped through their section with a 10-0 record and that was accredited to their pitching staff.

But in their first round game with the Wickenburg Wranglers that facet abandoned them as they gave up several unearned runs.

“Our pitcher struggled to find his strike zone,” Page coach Ernie Rivers said ace pitcher Drew Runyan. “He walked a couple of guys in the third inning and by that time they were up 6-3 on us. We just had a lot of passed balls and wild pitches.”

---