2017 State Baseball Tournament
RIO RANCHO – The last thing Rio Rancho coach Ron Murphy wanted Saturday was for his Rams players to become complacent and fall into the trap of mistakenly believing they had some mythical margin for error.
They didn’t, adhering to his wishes of coming out and executing early.
Riding the sharp pitching of junior Nick Silcox, three early runs and another clutch, two-out RBI hit in the bottom of the sixth, Rio Rancho held off Eldorado, 6-2, Saturday to sweep the best-of-three Class 6A first-round series.
Rio Rancho, which never trailed in the two-game showdown, advances to face No. 1 seed La Cueva Thursday night in the Class 6A quarterfinals at Isotopes Park in Albuquerque.
“It doesn’t matter who we play, we’re going to get after it,” Murphy said afterwards. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the No. 1 seed or the No. 16 seed. Baseball is baseball. Anybody can beat anybody. We’re excited to be playing Thursday night and we’re glad to be there.”
