Durango clinches division with win over Bonanza

Zack Hall

Thursday, April 27, 2000 | 11:17 a.m.

As defending state champion, the Durango high baseball team would like nothing more than to repeat the feat this season.

The Trailblazers took a major step toward that goal by beating second- place Bonanza 6-3 to take the Southwest Division championship Wednesday at Durango.

The win earned Durango (22-7, 7-1) one of the top seeds in the Sunset Region Tournament that begins next Wednesday at Durango.

"We just used this opportunity to try to play for undisputed first place," said Blazers coach Mike Gomez. "If we would have lost today than that would have put us in some tiebreakers if they would have won tomorrow. We told the kids to go out and treat it as if it was a championship-type playoff game and get after it."

The Blazers got a solid pitching performance from senior starter E.J. Shanks, who pitched 6 2/3 innings, allowing one earned run and striking out six in his last regular-season start on the Trailblazers home field, outdueling Bengal starter Justin Clift.

The Bengals (17-9, 4-3) are a shoo-in for the playoffs themselves but will have a tougher road to make it the state championship tournament.

For Durango, there are still some pieces that need to come together if it wants to make another run into state. Not the least of which is replacing the possible loss of the Trailblazers' first baseman and leading home run hitter, Chris Kelly, who has missed this week's games for unspecified reasons.

Gomez said that on the field the Blazers need to cut down on their errors -- pointing out the four they committed Wednesday -- before the postseason begins.

"I think it's our mental approach more than anything (that needs improvement)," Gomez said. "We come out of a lot of games and we seem to be the team that breaks down and make the mistakes similar to what they did tonight. We always seem to be digging ourselves out of holes."

Durango got a burst from its fourth and fifth-place hitters in the fifth inning. With a lead of 4-1, Coltyn Simmons and Nate Bumstead hit back-to-back home runs over the left-field fence to put Durango up 6-1.

In the sixth the Bengals made things interesting after scoring two runs and loading the bases with only one out and the meat of Bonanza's order coming to the plate.

Shanks was up to the task though, striking out Andrew Smith and getting No. 3 hitter Austin Hales to ground weakly to second to end the threat without another runner scoring.