Lady Patriots looking for better results in district play

FARMINGTON

Ahead of the district season, Miyamura softball coach Anthony Vinson believes his talented squad is ready to turn a corner.

The Lady Patriots have compiled a 7-8 overall record and they open the district season against city rival Gallup on Tuesday, March 31 at Gallup High School.

Just recently, Miyamura competed in the Linda Crabtree Memorial Softball Challenge and the Patriots went 3-2 against 4A competition at the round robin tournament.

“We had some tough losses early, you know, where we were kind coming together as a team,” Vinson said. “We lost some senior leadership last year, and now our young girls are starting to pick up that leadership, so we’re starting to move down the tracks on the train.

“We had a bad start to the season, and now we’re picking it up,” he added. “Hopefully, we can keep this going.”

Vinson acknowledged there were some inconsistencies in their play when the Patriots competed at the Cleveland and Las Cruces tournaments earlier this season. At the Cleveland tournament, Miyamura went 1-3 while the Patriots went 1-2 at the Southern New Mexico Invite in Las Cruces.

“We’ve been struggling early, and we lost a couple that we should have won,” Vinson said. “We’re battling and we’re getting better and better every day. Like I said, we’re trying to turn the page and move on and get better and better and get strong for district.”

Vinson returns five lettermen from last year’s squad that went 11-14 overall and 3-7 in District 1-4A play.

“We lost six, seniors last year and I we have a couple of eighth graders that came up and they’re playing pretty well for us,” Vinson said. “I think we have only two senior starters, so we’re a fairly young team.”

Inside the circle, Vinson has used four different pitchers in eighth grader Bailey Yazzie, sophomore Phillicity Nez and juniors Alexandria Begaye and Payton Haskie.

“Of course, the arm motion in softball is a lot different than baseball, so they can go longer,” Vinson said. “They can pitch every game if their body allows it. But we try to be mindful of not putting the girls in a bad spot where they’re going to injured.”

Of the four pitchers, the Patriots will be leaning on Nez, who leads the team with 54 strikeouts.

“Phillicity is a sophomore, and she is doing really good,” Vinson said. “She’s developing in the circle and we’re expecting good things from her down the season.”

Offensively, the Miyamura coach says is team can be potent at the plate. The Patriots are led by junior Iris Day Chief, who has 0.545 batting average followed by senior Shelby Haskie at 0.479 and junior Celeste Cano at 0.400.

“We got a pretty deep lineup,” Vinson said. “I mean, one through eight can pretty much take the ball deep Our nine holes is a scrappy hitter, she’s always getting on base, so she kind of flips the lineup to get us back to the top.

The Patriots will finish out the regular season with district games, but they do have a game scheduled with 3A school West Las Vegas on May 2 at home. Following the Gallup game, Miyamura will host Aztec on April 3 and Kirtland Central on April 7.

“I would say Aztec is probably the favorite, but Kirtland is definitely a team to watch and they’re playing really well,” Vinson said. “Gallup is always tough and we’re right in the middle of the pack.

“Bloomfield is a scrappy team, and they can beat you on any given day,” he added. “Shiprock is also scrappy, too, so there’s no easy wins in our district.”

With playoff ambitions, Vinson is hoping his team to get one of the higher seeds for the 16-team state bracket. Last season, the Patriots earned the No. 12 seed, and they were eliminated by a 5-1 count to No. 5 Roswell Goddard.

“We’re looking to go higher, but like I said, we’re off to a rough start,” Vinson said. “We got district play and our district is really tough. We got a lot of good teams in our district, so it’s going to be a battle. But we’re going to try our best like heck, to try and at least get the second seed in district.”

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