Every high school team experiences growing pains after losing a senior class, but Wiggins
baseball’s growth spurt seems to be taking a little longer than usual.
Ten games into this spring season, the Tigers are still trying to figure out how to overcome the
hurdles of close games, already dropping four one-run contests. They have, however, managed
to win a few against three different opponents.
The Tigers’ March 30 doubleheader against Haxtun saw them lose the first contest 7-1 before
finding their offense in the second. In the later matchup, they tapped into one last dose of
energy to pull out a 7-5 victory over the Fightin’ Bulldogs.
Wiggins began the game with three runs in the top of the first, but gave away two in the bottom
of that same inning. Both teams went scoreless through the next three before the Tigers padded
their lead with another run in their half of the fifth.
The Fightin’ Bulldogs knocked in one run each in the sixth and seventh, triggering the need for
an extra inning to decide a winner. Wiggins squashed that initiative with three scores in the top
of the eighth before only allowing one more.
Junior Riley Thomas and sophomore Jace Yzaguirre led the Tigers with two RBIs apiece.
A week later, the Tigers pulled out a 2-1 win over visiting Highland, once again needing an extra
inning to get the job done. The Tigers leaned on masterful pitching from freshman Larry Garcia,
who struck out eight batters while only allowing two hits, to propel them to a 1-0 lead heading
into the top of the sixth.
That’s when the Huskies finally got on the board, eventually forcing an eighth inning. The Tigers
walked it off with one run from there. This time around, Garcia and Thomas accounted for both
of the team’s RBIs.
On Tuesday, they padded their win column even more with a 12-8 barnburner against Wray.
Wiggins will return home on Thursday to take on Akron.
