Bad news for the Bears?
Coyotes taking on the Bears in season finales
The bad news for the La Joya Coyotes’ baseball team as they headed into the final two games of their District 31-6A schedule was that they were two games behind the undefeated PSJA Bears for the top spot in the standings. The good news was that those two games were against the Bears. As a result, all they had to do to finish the regular season as district co-champions was to win both games.
The first of these two games was played Tuesday night at PSJA High School. The second is scheduled for tonight at 7 p.m. at La Joya High School. Unfortunately for the Coyotes and their fans, it was not the Bears that received the bad news, it was them as they lost to the Bears by a score of 6-4.
The game started about as well as could be expected for the Coyotes as they took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning with a two-run homerun by center fielder Matt Ortiz. The majestic blow that sailed over the center field wall gave the Coyotes’ faithful in attendance at PSJA High School good reason to think that this critical game might go in the Coyotes’ favor. However, missed opportunities to tack onto their lead in the subsequent innings resulted in the Bears roaring back by scoring runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings and taking a 6-2 lead.
“In games like these you really gotta feed off of being able to come in with that timely hit…runners on second and third multiple times there will less than two outs, we’ve really got to find a way to score,” Coyotes’ head coach Guadalupe “Wally” Barrera said immediately after the game. “And at the end of the day you know it’s something that I feed to the kids all the time. The team that makes the least amount of mistakes, that plays cleaner baseball, is the team that comes out on top no matter how good you are.”
After having won six games in a row, the Coyotes have now lost two in a row. And with only one game remaining on their district schedule, winning that game is critical to avoid going into the playoffs on a three game losing streak.
“It’s a big game,” Barrera said about tonight’s game. “Every game is big. We feed off of that. Like I told my boys, ‘Beating us once is tough. Beating us two times is even tougher.’ So I expect them to come out hungry and ready to play some ball at home in front of the home crowd.”
While Tuesday night’s game didn’t go the way Barrera hoped it would, he was pleased with what he saw from his team.
“At the end of the day I’m proud of the boys,” Barrera said. “They showed fight tonight after going down four runs there late in the ball game. They showed the fight. And that just shows the quality of team that these guys are…the hitters…the arms. They did well and I’m proud of the efforts.”
While a lot of coaches resort to yelling at their players when they fall behind in a big game like Tuesday night’s, Barrera could be heard saying positive and encouraging things to his players in the late innings against the Bears despite the fact that they weren’t playing their best game.
“There’s times when I press and I try to motivate them, but then there are moments like these…I tell them all the time, ‘You know you’re good. You know you’re good so stay true to your element. Play baseball the way you know how, the way you’re coached to play and good things happen’. We saw there, a late run getting some runs in and scoring some guys. We’ve got some tremendous hitters. Matt (Ortiz) had a really good game out there so they’ve just got to trust in each other,” Barrera said about how he motivates his players.
The Coyotes responded to those words of encouragement by scoring two runs in the top of the seventh inning, on a two run double by Ortiz, and having the tying run come to the plate before the third out was made to end the game. Ending the game on a positive note like that could very well carry over into tonight’s game and possibly help the Coyotes get back on the winning track. But whether or not that happens, Barrera seems to have instilled a positive attitude in his players and coaching staff that is all too often missing in today’s high school dugouts, sidelines and locker rooms. And whether or not that positive attitude results in additional wins for the Coyotes as they head into this year’s playoffs, chances are it will eventually pay off in big ways for the Coyotes and their fans.
Well done Coach Barrera. Well done.
