By Mike Weaver

The Montezuma-Cortez High School softball team swept two Southwestern League opponents at the Cortez Softball Complex last weekend and now must take the momentum to the District 3 Softball Tournament this Friday and Saturday, Oct. 15-16.

Last Saturday, Oct. 9, the Panthers took a doubleheader away from Rifle, 8-2 and 6-5. Palisade was an unwilling twin bill victim of the Panthers Friday in games cut short by the 10-point mercy rule. Cortez dished out a 12-1 thumping to the Bulldogs in the first game and then put a 12-2 loss into the Palisade record book in game two.

It probably will go down as the best weekend of the season for the 8-11 Cortez team. With the district tourney looming at the Kronkright Softball Complex in Grand Junction, the Panthers certainly should have momentum going for them as the regular season comes to an end.

Cortez coach Ted Williams seemed to think so after the final game Saturday.

"This is a great time for the girls to start winning," Williams said. "I think things are headed in a positive direction; things are coming together."

At 3:30 p.m. Friday Cortez will open its district action as the third seeded team against Palisade. If the Panthers get past the Bulldogs they will play Delta in the semifinals at 10 a.m. Saturday. Central received a bye into the semifinals to meet the winner of the Rifle-Montrose game. The winners will play again at 12:30 p.m. to see which team advances to Regionals.

Cortez seemed to be on the way to an easy win in its opener against Rifle taking a 4-0 lead after two innings. In the top of the fourth Brooke Twilley stroked a triple for a run batted in to make it 5-0.

Rifle scored three times in the fourth inning and added two more runs in the fifth to even the score as the Panthers wobbled on the defensive side. The Bears’ five runs came on just two hits.

"They tried to go south," Williams said. "But then they regained their composure and didn’t.

After holding Rifle scoreless through the sixth inning, the Panthers put the winning run up when Linda Smart laid down a sacrifice bunt to score Amanda Johnson.

Jentri Giesler pitched a two hitter to claim the Cortez win.

Giesler led off with a base hit up the middle to begin the second game. By the time the Panthers retired, they had scored six runs with Jena Thompson and Ashley Wilson batting in runs. They added two more in the fourth and fifth innings. Rifle runs in the sixth and seventh innings proved to be all it had in its arsenal.

Panther pitcher Stacey Pottorff took the Cortez win, giving up six hits. The losing pitcher for Rifle was Brooke Pace.

It was a field day for the Panthers when they went up against hapless Palisade. Pottorff took to the pitching rubber in the first game and held the Bulldogs to two hits, and at the plate the Panthers pounded out 11 hits in the 15-1 rout.

Cortez took a 12-0 lead after three innings and then stretched the gap to 15-0 after four. The ten-point rule came into effect in the bottom of the fifth inning when Rifle could only come up with one run.

Giesler was credited with the Panther win, while Palisade’s Allison Theistook the loss.

In the bottom half of the twin bill against Palisade, the Panthers tallied two runs in the bottom of the second inning and added seven more in the third to get their rout rolling. An unearned run in fourth game Cortez a 10-0 edge.

Palisade scored twice in the fifth inning, but two unearned runs in the sixth gave the Panthers their 10-point margin for the win.