It certainly was a successful season for the Dolores County High School varsity baseball. It ended the year with a 17-5 record. They won the San Juan League title and finished as the no. 2 seed coming out of Divisionals.

"I was pleased with our hitting this year," DCHS head coach Ken Soper said. "We hit .380 as team which isn’t too bad. We got a lot of clutch hits and we scored a lot of runs (273 or 12.4 per game. I was most disappointed with our fielding and throwing this year. I also was disappointed with the number of walks (116) our pitchers gave up. They also hit 24 batters and had 33 wild pitches."

Their season came to an end with an 18-12 loss to Custer County in the District Tournament at Alamosa on May 6.

Custer County took advantage of several throwing errors coupled with several hits into five unearned runs in the second inning to take a 5-0 lead. The Bulldogs came back in the fourth with six runs to go ahead by a run. But the Bobcats came back with a run to knot the score at 6-6. Custer County exploded for seven runs in the bottom of the fifth to take a commanding 13-6 lead. But the Bulldogs came back, thanks partially to a two-run homer by Terence Gardner, with six runs. Dove Creek was within a run at 13-12 but Custer County put the game away with five unearned runs in the bottom of the sixth. The Bulldogs’ magic ran out as they could not score in the top of the seventh.

"Again, we made too many errors in this game. It wasn’t so much our fielding, but throwing mistakes. Our offense was there because we scored 12 runs which is usually good enough to win," he commented.

Gardner rapped two other singles in the game and finished with three runs batted in. Dallas Coker, one of the top hitters in Class 2A, went three-for-four at the plate. Ron Ernst went two-for-three including a double.

Gardner worked four and two-thirds innings, fanning six but walking five while taking the loss on the mound.

The San Juan League coaches will meet to decide the All-Conference team. The players making the elite team will be announced next week.