The Cortez Juniors All-Star Team played Durango to a hard-fought tie in the first four innings on Friday night before Durango amped up its bats and scored 13 runs to finish with a score of 20-7 after 6 innings.

Although Cortez played a strong defense from the start of the game, it was unprepared for Durango’s explosive offense in the last two innings after switching up their pitchers in the fifth inning.

“Once we saw that we were losing the game, we put our best pitchers down to ease their nerves for tomorrow (Saturday),” says Tim Passell, head coach of the Cortez Juniors.

In fact, both teams had exceptional pitching performances throughout the full game, with starter Dakota Smith (No. 5) from Cortez catching two quick balls immediately after pitching them, and Roland Madrid (No. 7) from Durango scoring a total of five strikeouts in the game.

Pitching performances aside, the highlight of the game was the offensive approach in the latter innings, with both teams scoring back-to-back doubles. Cortez scored the first set of doubles, with Cortez’ Smith and Neil Farias (No. 27), in the fourth inning to tie the game at 7 apiece. In the next inning, two Durango players, including Durango’s Madrid, doubled to bring them ahead. Durango finished the game with a flurry of singles to end with a total of 13 runs over Cortez.

Despite the disappointment of most players on the Cortez team, coach Passell is confident that later performances will help them to improve after the first game, and that saving his best pitchers for Game 2 against Durango will lead to a much better outcome.

All he expects from his players is to perform at the top of their game, and build upon their improvements.

“We had a good start, but we now we just gotta finish it.”