Cherry-Silver Game One Photo Gallery
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Approximately 150 fans saw an exciting start to the 2015 Cherry-Silver Series at Lobo Field on Saturday afternoon as Cherry held on for a 7-6 victory over Silver. Matt Villalobos tossed 3.2 hitless innings of relief for Cherry to earn the victory.
“Game One is huge,” Villalobos said. “It sets the tone for the rest of the series. The whole team did a great job playing the game how it’s supposed to be played. We had a little rough back-and-forth in the first couple innings, but we settled down in the last half of the game so that was nice.”
Cherry opened the scoring in the bottom of the first with three runs. The top of their lineup — Austin Bell, Luis Gonzalez and Chris DeVito — all reached base and scored for the early advantage. Silver, though, came right back with three of their own in the top of the second as Jared Mang, Scottie Graham and Dalton Bowers all scored.
Silver then took the lead with a run in the third. Andre Vigil led off with a double and scored on Mang’s single. This time it was Cherry’s turn to respond, though, as they tied it right up.
Cherry took the lead for good in the fifth on Gonzalez’s leadoff home run to right, and Villalobos shut down the Silver offense for most of the afternoon.
“The thing that was really working for me today was that I was able to throw all my pitches for strikes,” he said. “I have four different pitches, and I was able to get them over for strikes. That really kept their hitters off-balance.”
Villalobos walked one and struck out one.
Cherry added to its lead in the eighth with a couple of runs and the help of some sunballs. Hayden Schilling led off and was hit by a pitch. Erick Migueles followed with a double down the left-field line that Jacob Westerman couldn’t find. With one out and two men on Luis Hernandez lined a pitch to left-center. Silver center fielder Andre Vigil appeared to have a bead on it, but he lost it in the sun at the last second and it went for a two-run triple.
Four groundball singles in the ninth produced two runs for Silver, but Schilling was able to get Jack Zoellner to ground out to second to end the game with two runners on.
The two teams will meet in Game Two Sunday afternoon at 1 at Lobo Field. Admission is once again free and open to the public.