Cibola falls to Coyotes in quarterfinals

Centennial made five errors in a quarterfinal game of the Cibola Baseball Invitational on Friday.

But it was Cibola that made the costliest one.

The Coyotes started the decisive four-run sixth inning by reaching on an error in a 5-1 win over the Raiders at Yuma High, advancing them to the semifinals.

Centennial (5-7) will play Las Vegas at 10 a.m. today at Kofa, while Yuma and Kofa play in the other semifinal at 10 a.m. at Cibola. The winners of the two games meet at 2:30 p.m. at Cibola for the title.

Cibola (3-7) - which faces Sinagua in a consolation semifinal at 11:30 at Yuma High - also lost earlier in the day in its last pool game, 3-1 to Palo Verde, keeping it from winning the pool.

"It's disappointing, but these are tournament games and it goes on your record but it dosen't count toward power points," coach Duane Evans said. "Right now, my main concern is to win games but we need to look at power points and keep our head above water and hopefully be around for postseason."

The Raiders got a strong performance out of starter Alex Miranda, who went just four innings and allowed one unearned run, striking out four and walking two in a two-hit performance.

But after a relatively smooth fifth, reliever Martin Chacon struggled in the sixth. He started by coaxing leadoff hitter Jimmy Nelson into grounding to shortstop, but Jose Vega misplayed the ball. After catcher Daniel Vega's throw on a sacrifice bunt attempt went down the right field, runners were at second and third.

A walk loaded the bases, then after Chacon struck out cleanup hitter Sam Friend, he plunked Anthony Consiglio as the Coyotes took the lead. Robby Rosenthal added a two-run double for insurance. The scoring ended when Consiglio scored on a wild pitch.

"We had some unfortunate situations in the wrong time of the inning," Evans said. "It was at tie ballgame, and whoever makes the first mistake it's going to cost them. Unfortunately, we let the leadoff guy on an error and it compounded and it cost us a game."

Evans said he wouldn't let Miranda - who threw 68 pitches - tax himself in a tournament game.

"We've got some game next week that he's going to go in," Evans said. "It was an opportunity for him to keep his routine going, but we didn't want to push him to the point he couldn't come back next week."

After the Coyotes scored an unearned run in the bottom of the second, Jerry Renteria hit an RBI double just inside the first-base line, scoring Josh Contieras, who reached on an error.

But an inning earlier, the Raiders had a chance to score, getting runners to second and third with no outs and the leadoff batter up. But Centennial starter Dylan Giesler struck out the next two hitters before getting a pop out to end the inning. Cibola left nine runners on base in the game.

"I think it's something we can adjust," Evans said. "But, yeah, it's disappointing when we need basically a ground ball to the middle infield to score a run. It's something we can see, work on and hopefully get a lot better at."

Giesler went the distance, striking out 10 and walking three. He allowed three hits.