Rusty Roadrunners Open Season With 10-4 Loss To Chino Valley

By Greg Perkins
   Last season the Holbrook Roadrunner baseball squad made it all the way to the state championship game before bringing home the state runner-up trophy. This year Coach Shawn Layden has a team that will need to score more runs and play strong defense to take the Birds deep into the state playoffs.
   The Birds opened the season with a home game Monday against Chino Valley, and their lack of time on the practice field and a canceled scrimmage game both had an effect on the team in the first three in-nings. Seeing their first live action of the year the Roadrunners gave up eight hits and nine runs, and went scoreless through the first four innings of play.
   Chino Valley’s big inning was the third, where Holbrook gave up three singles, three doubles and a pair of walks.
   Tyrell Sulu started the season on the hill and took the loss with seven hits and four earned runs. Nic Salazar pitched in relief, giving up six more runs, then Jared Hatch came in and worked the final innings, allowing no earned runs.
   At the plate Hatch had the best hit of the day with a two-run blast over the center field fence in the sixth inning, scoring Ryan Slade. The Roadrunners had a chance to mount a challenge in the sixth as they trailed just 9-4, but a hard shot up the middle by Brian Hansen was nicely fielded and turned into a fielder’s choice, ending Holbrook’s threat.
   Holbrook ended the game with four runs on four hits and made three errors, while Chino Valley scored 10 runs on 14 hits and also made three errors.
   “We really haven’t had a lot of time on the practice field with the wet weather and not having a scrim-mage game for the same reasons, and we had some first game nerves at the plate and in the field. Still we had just six strikeouts, which isn’t all that bad,” said Coach Layden.
Chino Valley        117 000 1 10
Holbrook              000 013 0    4
   The Roadrunners host Show Low today (Feb. 29), then travel to St. Johns on Saturday, March 1. On Tuesday, March 4, they host Blue Ridge, then they will head to River Valley, where they hope to get at least five games in the three-day tournament.