Tiger baseball sees hiccups in games, rain delay

By Jacob Chavarria

Slatonite Correspondent

The Slaton Tiger baseball team saw the number of opponents decrease. The quality of opponents continued to provide Slaton with stiff competition, however,  as they played two games this starting the week off with the Dimmitt Bobcats on Monday evening (March 8) which resulted in a 17-2 loss for the Tigers.

Head Coach Dilon Chancellor said despite the loss against Dimmitt he was pleased about facing a tough pitcher that was able to challenge his hitters.

“It was a growing experience. I was glad we got to see a little of velocity. It’s good that we get to see guys like that early on,” he said. Despite being overpowered by a quality pitching staff from Dimmitt, he knows this will allow his team to grow and use this for future quality pitching staffs they may see. As he told his team that “When we face someone like that later on during the season and potentially in the course of the playoffs, it’s not going to shock us,” he said.

Before heading into the second game of the week, Slaton was able to use their less hectic of a week without any tournament games to get back to practicing and working on their skills. Which Chancellor felt like helped his team with their success in their Friday afternoon game.

“Leading up to that game it was our preparation and the weeks practice, the guys were focused and locked in. I believe that is what led to that 10-0 game against Colorado City,” said Chancellor.

Slaton ended their week by hosting Colorado City on Friday (March 12). The Tigers were unable to finish the bottom of the fifth due to weather. Lightning halted the game where the Tigers were up 10-0, and won by run rule.

Coach Chancellor’s ballclub was able to put together a great game against the Wolves offensively altogether and defensively which was led by Matt Vigil on the mound. “Matt Vigil does a great job, comes out attacks and gets ahead of hitters and puts us in the position to win a ballgame. Then we executed on the offensive side and gave us a chance to win a ballgame in the fifth before the lightning got us.”

Vigil with a strong outing went four complete innings in the contest with five strikeouts. Chancellor touched on how he thought of Vigil’s performance. “(Vigil) did an outstanding job on the mound just getting ahead of hitters and maintaining a great mound presence throughout the game,” he said.

With a strong defensive effort, offensively the Tigers backed it up by getting ahead early and maintaining their strong performance at the plate.

“We go out there and jump ahead first inning 3-0 on those guys. That’s something that we’ve talked about all year, being able to throw the first punch in a game and then be able to create chaos spin the game and finish our opponent,” said Chancellor.

With three games left before the start of District play, the Tigers will hit the road this week traveling to Littlefield on Tuesday (March 16) and then to Lamesa Friday morning (March 19).