Rattlers strike back
Diamondbacks get snake bit
In the baseball version of the Snakeskin Classic, the Sharyland Rattlers avenged their first round loss to the Pioneer Diamondbacks Tuesday night with a mercy rule shortened 11-0 win in six innings. It was almost as if a homerun derby broke out in the middle of this game as the Rattlers blasted four homeruns against the Diamondbacks’ pitching.
Sharyland’s Sergio Ibarra pitched a complete game shutout for his eighth win of the season with no losses Tuesday as the Rattlers defeated the Diamondbacks 11-0. Progress Times photo by Luciano Guerra
“We just talked to the kids today you know, just to be on offense today,” Rattlers’ head coach Austin “Bick” Bickerton said immediately after the game. “We weren’t trying to beat them, we wanted them to try to beat us. So we were on the offensive today and we had a good plan going into the game. We were struggling a little bit the past couple of games, hitting wise, but hopefully this catapults us into getting hot.”
In their first round matchup, the Diamondbacks pulled out a come-from-behind walk-off victory in the bottom of the seventh inning by a score of 4-3. In that game Diamondbacks’ pitchers limited the Rattlers to three hits, all singles. Tuesday night the Rattlers compiled 12 hits with eight of them being for extra bases. The homeruns were hit by junior second baseman Luis Balderas, senior center fielder Nic Valdez, junior third baseman Edgar Quintanilla and senior catcher Luis “Bicho” Cienfuegos. Senior Sergio Ibarra pitched all six innings for the Rattlers to chalk up the win and to improve his record to 8-0 and lower his ERA to 1.07.
The Rattlers vs Diamondbacks baseball rivalry has come to be known as one of the best rivalries in the Valley; especially over the past eight years. That’s because while the Rattlers won eight of the first 10 games between these two sister schools, the Diamondbacks have turned the series around by winning nine of their 16 most recent matchups.
“It’s just good baseball on both sides,” Bickerton said. “I have a ton of respect for Coach Leal and all those kids at Pioneer. They’re great kids. The rivalry is good. There’s a lot of energy during the games and these games are fun for the kids…they’re fun for us. We love playing those guys. It’s very stressful but again, (I have) nothing but respect for Pioneer.”
With the win the Rattlers improved their District 31-5A record to 12-1 while the Diamondbacks dropped to 11-3 with the loss. Had the Diamondbacks won this game, they would’ve controlled their own district championship destiny due to the fact that they would’ve swept the Rattlers this season. That would’ve given them the tie-breaker advantage. As it stands now, it’s the Rattlers who are in the district title driver’s seat from here on out.
“Coming into this game we clinched a playoff berth last week,” Pioneer head baseball coach Adrian Leal said. “And we were going to use our remaining games, with McHi included, to make sure that we were doing everything to get ready for the playoffs. If a district championship ended being in that future, then we’ll take it. But we know that it’s not our end goal. And although we have an outside shot still to win the championship, we want to finish strong because a district championship or not, it’s kind of like in college basketball. You have a conference tournament and then you get ready for the big dance. That’s what we’ve always preached.”
Sharyland’s Edgar Quintanilla celebrates his two run homerun in the third inning of the Rattlers’ 11-0 win over the Diamondbacks Tuesday. Progress Times photo by Luciano Guerra
Leal went on to share how winning district championships has not always resulted in long playoff runs. As a matter of fact, the opposite has been true the past two seasons.
“Last year we had a good (playoff) run and we didn’t win the district championship. The year before we won the district championship and we didn’t go as far. So things like that don’t matter. I know they come into the game but we have awesome kids here and I couldn’t be more proud of how we’ve done as a team overall throughout the year. And although this game is tough and it’s not indicative of how we’ve played, I think that they kept their composure well and I feel very strongly about how we’ll do in the future.”
With the regular season winding down, the Rattlers’ remaining games are at Edinburg Vela tonight, against PSJA Memorial at home Tuesday and at PSJA North next Friday. As for the Diamondbacks, they only have two games remaining on their district schedule; at home against Nikki Rowe tonight and at PSJA Southwest Tuesday.
While this was a huge win for the Rattlers, Bickerton wants to make sure his boys don’t suffer a let-down tonight against Vela.
“I told these guys after the game, ‘Don’t let this be the biggest game of the year. We’ve got a lot of big wins ahead of us.’ We’ve just got to go back to work and not have a hangover going into Vela. We’ve just got to come out and play the way that we play,” Bickerton shared.
Sharyland’s Luis Balderas celebrates his three run homerun in the third inning of the Rattlers’ 11-0 win over the Diamondbacks Tuesday. Progress Times photo by Luciano Guerra
For the Diamondbacks to overtake the Rattlers in the standings and claim the district title outright, they will need to win-out while the Rattlers lose-out. A slightly more likely scenario would be for the Diamondbacks to win-out and the Rattlers to lose two of their remaining three games. While this would result in a co-championship for these two teams, that is a highly unlikely scenario, especially since two of the Rattlers’ remaining three opponents have losing records, Vela at 6-7 and PSJA Memorial at 2-11.
