Dolores County and Montezuma-Cortez varsity baseball teams are busy this spring break week. Dolores has been idle.

Dolores County opened play in the Chieftain Baseball Invitational on Thursday afternoon, March 30, at Shiprock High School. The Bulldogs played a football game rather than a baseball game, or at least the score indicated that. They had no problems in the game, winning 31-0 over Zuni, N.M. In other first-round games, host Shiprock nipped Santa Fe (N.M.) Indian School 5-4 and Tohatchi, N.M. stopped Cuba, N.M. 7-4. Farmington High "C" team was to play Shiprock Silver (JVs) early Friday morning, a game that was rained out from Thursday. In other second-round games, Dove Creek was to scheduled to play Shiprock, Santa Fe Indian School to battle Zuni, the winner of the FHS C-Shiprock Silver was to meet Tohatchi and the loser to face Cuba.

The tournament continues today, April 1, with the championship game set for 4 p.m. and the third place game set for about 2 p.m.

"It was a football game," DCHS head coach Ken Soper said. "Well, it was more like a football score, anyway."

Dove Creek scored a touchdown (or 6 runs in baseball jargon) in the bottom of the first inning. It scored a touchdown and a field goal (9 runs) in the second. The Bulldogs went quietly, three up and three down in the third, but exploded for two TDs and an extra point (15 runs) in the fourth when the Zuni gave up with the Bulldogs still batting. DCHS improved to 6-1 overall.

Dallas Daves had a good day at the plate, going 3-for-4. He knocked in a pair of runs. Not only did Daves hit the ball, he also limited Zuni to one hit and struck out six batters from the mound.

Daves got help at the plate. Ron Ernst cracked a grand slam over the fence in the second inning and collected 5 runs batted in on the day. Terence Gardner belted a two-run homer and a double. Michael Nielson swatted a single and a double.

Alan Copeland, Casey Spitzer, and Trent Daves scored four runs apiece. The Bulldogs finished with 18 hits on the day.

"I was proud of the kids. We hit the ball and we didn’t make any errors, but we did not get many chances. We certainly played better than we did in our last game against Moab (Utah)," Soper commented.

The Panthers, meanwhile, were scheduled to open Southwest League play against Palisade Friday afternoon at Parque de Vida. That game was postponed to 3:30 p.m. today. The Panthers are slated to play Fruita-Monument at 1 p.m. (instead of 11 a.m. as scheduled) at Parque de Vida, weather permitting. More rain and snow was forecast for today according to the National Weather Service.

Cortez has been hitting the ball fairly well as a team so far this season (.316 as team). Evan Frost leads the individuals with 11 hits in 21 attempts for a healthy .524 batting average. Tony McComb has eight hits in 22 tries for a solid .406 average. He leads the team with 10 RBI. Josh Cornett has eight hits in 26 at bats for .346.