Durango takes next step by winning first 4A state baseball championship

Spencer Patterson

Monday, May 24, 1999 | 9:55 a.m.

There's never been much doubt about the quality of prep baseball at Durango High School.

Since opening in the fall of 1993, the school has averaged 27 wins per season on the diamond, captured a Southern Zone championship and shared in two Sunset Division titles.

The team has been ranked both regionally and nationally by publications from USA Today to Baseball America, and has produced more than 50 college players and major league draft picks, including current UNLV outfielder Ryan Ludwick and Alan Webb, a top pitching prospect in the Detroit Tigers organization.

The Trailblazers play their home games on what is generally recognized as one of the top high school fields in the nation, and they are coached by one of Nevada's most respected baseball minds in head coach Mike Gomez.

Yet despite all that, the Trailblazers still had a lot to prove to their peers, their fans and themselves.

That is, they did until Saturday, when the Blazers claimed their first 4A state title with a 2-0 win over Reno in the championship.

"There's been a lot of success, but we haven't had that stamp that we've won it all," Gomez said. "It kind of validates the quality of our program."

After coming up just short in the division and zone races this year, Durango (35-4) got the job done when it counted most, sweeping its three state tournament games against Reno on Thursday, Cimarron-Memorial on Friday and Reno again in Saturday's finale.

Perhaps most impressively, the Trailblazers did it behind a trio of complete-game pitching victories -- a rarity in this era of high-octane offenses at all levels of baseball.

"Everyone's always talking about offense, and that just gave me more to motivate them," Durango pitching coach Mike Stoker said. "I don't care how hard you hit the ball, if you don't get good pitching you can't win."

Senior J.T. Sherman got things started in Game 1, going the distance in the Blazers' 7-6 win over Reno, Northern Nevada's top club. Although the Huskies got their licks in against the Durango ace, Stoker and Gomez showed faith in Sherman, allowing him to escape a final-inning jam for the win.

"This is really Sherman's team," Stoker said. "The kid has sucked it up and worked so hard every single time that I've coached him over the last three years."

In the Trailblazers' second game, senior Jared Bonnell, a transfer from Cimarron-Memorial, got the call against his former team. Bonnell responded with his best performance of the year, limiting the Spartans to three hits in Durango's 10-1 victory.

"He grew up this year," Stoker said. "I was proud of the way he went against his old school. The fans were pretty hard on him, but he got it done."

As it turned out, as good as Sherman and Bonnell were in the first two rounds, the Blazers saved their pitching statement for last. Junior E.J. Shanks, the forgotten man on the team's deep staff, took the mound for the team's most important game to date.

The results were simply staggering. Shanks scattered four Reno singles over seven innings, struck out five and walked none to shut out one of the state's highest-scoring offenses.

"All game he was hitting his spots so great," Durango junior catcher Nate Bumstead said. "He was real calm. You'd have thought he'd been there before."

Of course, none of the Trailblazers had been to the state championship before, but it's not too early to speculate about their chances of getting back there again.

Though Sherman, Kilby and Bonnell graduate, Shanks returns to anchor a pitching staff that could once again be among the area's best. The infield should also be a strength for the team again, with Bumstead, first baseman Chris Kelly, shortstop Brandon Perry and third baseman Brent Johnson all back in the fold.

The outfield will present something of a question mark, as the Blazers lose starters Eric Kitchen, Sean Havens and James Burgess. But if Gomez can find suitable replacements for that talented threesome, Durango could find itself right back in the winner's circle next spring.

But the Durango coach warns that it's way too early to start setting his sights on Green Valley's string of six consecutive state titles -- a streak which stretched from 1993 until Saturday.

"We're going to be good enough to be right there, but what (former Green Valley coach) Rodger Fairless accomplished is phenomenal," Gomez said. "We'd like to think we could do something like that, but I don't think we can expect to."