Rams advance in Clovis tournament

CLOVIS -- Rio Rancho evened its record at 1-1 Thursday, beating El Paso Bowie 11-4 in a six-innning high school baseball game in the opener of the Clovis Invitational.

Sophomore Chris Martinez pitched five innings for the win. Brian Mueller went 3-for-5, including a threee-run homer, to pace the Rams' offense.

"We closed up a few holes (from Tuesday's 9-8 season opening home loss to Santa Fe), but we opened up a few others," RRHS coach Ron Murphy said. "We're still a work in progress.

"We played a better overall game, and I was pleased with our effort."

One area where the Rams improved was relief pitching. Gavin Biswell was effective for RRHS in one inning of relief, where the Rams gave up 12 runs in three innngs against the Demons. (Six of the runs don't count officially since they were scored in the top of the seventh inning and the Rams did not get to bat in the home half of the seventh due to darkness.)

Murphy was also pleased that his hitters concentrated more on base hits rather than swinging for the fences as they did against Santa Fe. After scoring eight runs on three homers against the Demons, the RRHS offense

"When Brian hit his home run to put us up 3-0, I thoguht 'Here we go again,'" Murphy said. "But we actually got some ground ball base hits today.

Rio Rancho will play St. Pius, which beat El Paso Del Valle 18-7, in one semifinal at 2:30 p.m. Friday. The other semifinal maches Santa Fe, which defeate Roswell Goddard 12-10, against El Paso Bel Air, which beat the host team 7-4.

Murphy said he plans to start Robert Rodella on the mound against St. Pius and hopes to bring back opening-day starter Alex Wehner, who gave up only three runs in four innings against Santa Fe, on Saturday.

"He was a little sore today, so it will be a matter of wait-and-see," Murphy said. "Right now, we just want to get to (the championship game on) Saturday."

The Rams return home for games with Santa Fe on Wednesday and Albuquerque High on Thursday. Both games are at 3:30 p.m.