The Pagosa Springs High School Pirate baseball team will kick off the 3A state playoffs Saturday, May 16, in Cortez, where they will face Brush.
The action for 3A Region 3, hosted by No. 3 seed Montezuma-Cortez Panthers, also features the No. 14 Brush Beetdiggers, No. 30 Berthoud Spartans and the No. 19 Pirates.
The Pirates were originally the No. 20 seed when the brackets were released, but were then moved to No. 19.
“[I] just let them know how proud I was,” said coach Jon Wells. “We still got work to do, but, I mean, their season has been a great success.”
The Pirates will face the Beetdiggers in the first round of regionals on Saturday and, if they win, they’ll face the winner of Montezuma-Cortez and Berthoud.
The Pirates are 13-10 on the season heading into regional action, while Brush is 13-10.
Montezuma Cortez holds a 18-5 record and Berthoud is 9-14.
In preparation for the playoffs, the team has been practicing all week with the idea that this week’s practices could be the final practices of the season, emphasized Wells.
On Monday, May 11, the team worked on fielding, the coach indicated, the following day the Pirates really focused on hitting and on Wednesday the boys were set to practice baserunning and situational baseball.
Wells mentioned that he brought back a Pirates’ alumni from last year’s team to pitch to them at Tuesday’s practice. The boys got to see some really good pitching in their live at bats because of it, noted Wells.
Thursday will be some more hitting practice and some light workouts.
“We unfortunately missed [the] playoffs last year, literally by one spot,” said Wells. “So, we’re just happy to be back in it. And I feel as though [in] any given game, we can beat anybody.”
jsellner@orourkemediagroup.com
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