SMHS BASEBALL
San Marcos fell at home Friday night against Cibolo Steele, losing to the Knights 2-1 in a thrilling district game.
The Rattlers bounced back to beat San Antonio O’Connor on Saturday in non-district action, improving their record to 16-6-1 overall while their district record sits at 6-3.
“It’s [been] a great series all week,” Head Coach Bryan Webb said. ‘We went over and took one from their place and they took one here in a 1-0 ballgame and a 2-1 ball game.
That’s just us and Steele and that’s the rivalry we’ve had for the past 14 years.
“We had our chances but we didn’t hit with runners on and I should have probably done some more bunting and stuff than I did, but this is what it’s about. We are still sitting in a good spot in district play where we have to just go win a couple of games and we’ll clinch our spot.”
Similar to their game on Tuesday, the Rattlers and the Knights were locked in a defensive battle as both teams played through three scoreless innings.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, the Rattlers broke the scoreless deadlock. Following a one-out triple from Landon Munoz, third baseman Mason Gamboa laid the bunt to the pitcher, scoring Munoz and giving San Marcos a 1-0 lead.
Steele answered back in the top of the sixth inning. After a two-out single, the Knights tied the game on an RBI double. In the next at-bat, Steele took the lead on another RBI, going up 2-1.
The Rattlers loaded up the bases with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning but a strikeout ended the San Marcos scoring threat.
San Marcos had a chance to tie the game with a runner at third with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning but a groundout to second ended the Rattlers chances.
The Rattlers regrouped on Saturday, hosting the San Antonio O’Connor Panthers.
San Marcos struck first in the bottom of the first. With runners on the corners, sophomore Andrew Wilson connected with the sacrifice bunt to score junior Juan Munos at third, giving the Rattlers a 1-0 lead. Later in the same inning, sophomore Jack Vasquez scored on a passed ball from third base to extend the lead 2-0.
San Marcos struck again in the bottom of the fourth. With runners on second and third with two outs, sophomore Elijah Ramirez connected with a two-run RBI single into left field and extended the lead to 4-0.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Rattlers scored again as Ronaldo Mendez-Soto hit a tworun RBI single of his own to make the score 6-0.
The pitching trio of Elijah Ramirez, Caleb Gomez and Zehavi Hernandez pitched a shut-out, allowing just five hits, no earned runs, one walks and striking out five batters to seal the win.
San Marcos will be on their district bye this week but will continue to play in non-district action. The Rattlers will host the Salado Eagles on Tuesday at home. First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m.
cmcwilliams @sanmarcosrecord.com Twitter: @ColtonBMc
