Baseball defeats Seminole, struggles in tournament

By Jacob Chavarria

Slatonite Correspondent

To begin the week, the Slaton Tiger baseball team opened up on Tuesday evening (March 2) with a win beating Seminole 8-7 after losing to the team the week prior.

With a combined pitching effort, the Tigers were able to close out the tight win with 12 strikeouts combined.

Matt Vigil got the start for the Tigers and accounted for seven strikeouts with Eli Perez relieving Vigil in the fourth.

Perez continued pitching strikeouts to get out of jams and ended his night with five.

Ayden Ramirez was able to come up big in the top of the seventh and kept Seminole from scoring. Ramirez closed out the game by getting a ground out to CJ Anzley to start Slaton with a win going into the week.

Head Coach Dilon Chancellor was proud of how his pitching staff performed against Seminole after the tough weekend they had faced coming into the game.

“They responded well from the weekend we came off of. Matt Vigil goes out, he does his job attacks and gets guys out,” he said.

“Then Eli Perez comes in and follows him up, he does a great job behind him. He gives up a grand slam and then comes back and gets some outs.”

“And then we got Ayden Ramirez that comes in and closes it for us. CJ makes a great play at short to get us out and win us a ballgame.”

Heading into the bottom of the sixth, the Tigers were down 4-6.

Offensively, they were able to find a grove, battle back and drove in four runs to regain the lead.

“That’s great that is just who we are as a club, guys that respond and put things together. We lean on each other and pick each other up. When one guy’s struggling, the next guy has to get up there and pick their guy up,” said Chancellor.

Chancellor’s ballclub then prepared for another tough tournament this past weekend competing in the Levelland Linedrive Classic Thursday through Saturday (March 4-6).

The Tigers competed against four 4A programs in the tournament, losing to Hereford 15-9, Perryton 13-5, Levelland 9-2 and Midland Greenwood 11-5.

Slaton was able to get some leads in their games but saw it subside as they were unable to produce and hold on to their leads.

Even with not many wins popping up on their record, Chancellor isn’t letting it determine who his team is.

“I tell them all the time, the record doesn’t define us, we know what we’re working towards we know our goals. We’re playing tough competition early to set us up for great things to come,” he said.

With a lighter week awaiting the Tigers, they will take on Dimmitt on Monday (March 8) and then face Colorado City next Friday (March 12).

This will allow the team to get some quality practice time in.

“We got some days we get to practice. Those are going to be some important days, because we got about six games and then it’s District play. So, these practices are going to be very important,” Chancellor said.

Scores will be reported in next week’s edition.