Coyotes remain in hunt for title

Victoria Sun

Thursday, May 10, 2001 | 9:26 a.m.

One of the mottoes of the CCSN baseball team is, "If you have any doubt, just get out."

As Coyotes center fielder Jon Slack put it, the team "has a rough mountain to climb" if it is going to win the National Junior College Athletic Association Region 1 Baseball Tournament.

Because CCSN lost a game last weekend in the double-elimination tournament, it must go undefeated this weekend.

The Coyotes (51-8) will play fourth-seeded Chandler-Gilbert Community College (31-22) at Central Arizona College Friday morning at 10. If they win, they'll have to beat No. 3 seed Glendale, the team they lost to last weekend 11-9, then sweep top-seeded Central Arizona on Saturday.

"It's going to test our pitching," said Slack, who went 2-for-5 with a triple against Glendale. "We're going to have to face their (Central Arizona) No. 1 and No. 2 pitchers with our No. 3 and 4.

"But it's very possible. I still think we have a chance. We scored a lot of runs in our first three games. That may make other teams timid to face some of our hitters. We don't get intimidated very easily. We don't back down from anybody."

CCSN coach Tim Chambers said Cliff McMachen will probably start game one and Jino Gonzalez will probably start game two. Both pitchers are 9-0.

In the Coyotes' 10-5 victory against South Mountain, McMachen struck out nine and allowed three earned runs in 8 1/3 innings. Gonzalez pitched five innings of shutout ball in CCSN's 15-2 pounding of Scottsdale Community College before Chambers inserted closer Shane Clatterbuck so that he could work a few innings.

The Coyotes' offense was bolstered in the tournament by outfielders Nick Didier and Andrew D'Angelo and catcher Tommy Rojas.

Rojas went 3-for-4 against Scottsdale and South Mountain while D'Angelo went 3-for-4 with a home run and two RBIs against Scottsdale. In three games, Didier went 8-for-13.

"We had a two-week period where we struggled offensively," Chambers said. "The last few games, we swung the wood bats instead of the aluminum.

"I think that got us back to the basics and now we're swinging the bats well. I feel we can score on anybody."

While Chambers is happy the second-year program has won more games in the post-season than last year when the team never made it to the second weekend of the tournament, he isn't satisfied yet.

And neither are his players.

Slack believes the different mentality his teammates have about the tournament will help them remain focused.

The first step for CCSN is not to overlook Chandler-Gilbert.

"We've got to take every game like it's our last one," Slack said. "We can't look past any of these teams."