Lopez tosses one-hitter as Steers pummel Northwest

It was a case of feast or famine for Magdalena as the Steers rallied for a 6-4 win in their first District 1-1A game on Saturday against Northwest before punching out a 20-0 victory in game two against the Falcons.

With two of his starters out due to injury, Magdalena coach Kyl Candelaria said earlier this season that he needed some of his younger players to step up and make things happen.

His team has responded, and thanks to individual and team efforts, the Steers are 2-0 in league play.

Steers 6 Falcons 4
In game one, eighth grader Paul Chavez-Lopez had a pair of RBIs, and sophomore starter Shane Montoya fanned 12 of the 25 batters he faced. The Steers needed to keep the Falcons off the basepaths because Magdalena got sat down 10 times against Northwest pitching.

Patience at the plate led to five walks, which helped the Steers score runs. Matthew Parker, Zeb Apachito, Joe Zamora, Chavez-Lopez, and Matthew Lopez swiped six bases.
Jayden Piasso, Apachito, Montoya and Javen Tafoya added to the Steers’ run totals with an RBI each.

Steers 20 Falcons 0
In game two, the floodgates opened at the plate, and the Steers went wild, giving junior hurler Matthew Lopez a comfortable 8-0 lead after two innings.

Ironically, Magdalena didn’t need the onslaught of runs because Lopez was humming on the mound.

He sat down nine of the 13 batters he faced as he flirted with a no-hitter.
How Lopez’s chance at a no-hitter slipped away will be the point of future conversations for Steers’ baseball fans, but for Candelaria, making sure his team knows the game plan is more critical than the superstitions that can surround baseball.

It’s a cardinal unwritten rule in baseball that you do not mention the fact someone is throwing a no-hitter, and that’s what Candelaria did in his dugout as he explained his new plans around a change of plan. A pitching change can mean moving several players around to fill spots.

Candelaria’s first game plan was for Lopez to pitch four innings and then switch to Zamora to close out the game. Lopez’s chance at a no-hitter changed all that, but at the same time, the Steers needed to know he had decided to switch things up.
The words “no-hitter” and “if a hit comes” coming out of their coach’s left players like senior Ayden Herschbach with a shocked look on their faces.
Is Candelaria superstitious?

“No,” he said. “Well, maybe sometimes, but I have to let them know what’s going on so we can stay focused. We’re young. We just need to communicate, and I need my older guys to lead my younger guys. My older guys need to communicate.”

Regardless of superstition, the baseball gods served up their punishment, and against the next batter, Lopez served up a hittable pitch that towered over first base just out of reach of three players before it dropped fair about a ball’s width inside the foul line.

Candelaria stuck to his new game plan and pulled Lopez to let Zamora close out the contest. At this point, the Steers were leading 20-0.

“We’re going to be successful if we can communicate on the field. We get in trouble when we don’t communicate. I need to make sure everybody knows what’s going on at all times,” Candelaria said.

There was a noticeable difference at the plate between the two games as the Steers collected 16 hits and 16 RBIs.

“I didn’t expect that first game to be as close as it was, but we’re trying to do too much at the plate. We’re not disciplined like we should be. You can’t enter a district game with a team that’s as young as we are and let teams hang around,” Candelaria said.

Herschbach led the Steers’ hitting in the second game with a 4-4 performance that drove in three runs. Zamora led all RBI hitters with four, Parker added three, while Lopez, Tafoya and Piasso had two each.

The game included a pair of back-to-back inside-the-park home runs by Zamora and Parker.