Apaches fall to Cuero in seven innings

The Gonzales Apaches hosted the Cuero Gobblers for the final home game of the season Friday, April 19.

The Apaches and the Gobblers were tied for four innings, handling each other’s offense with strong defenses, but errors had other plans for Gonzales.

Cuero took advantage of errors made by the Apaches in the top of the fifth inning and scored seven runs.

“Game one obviously didn't go our way. The biggest thing is that we really hurt ourselves. And I'll go ahead and say now — at this point that we really beat ourselves,” Gonzales head baseball coach Garry Beveridge said.

“Cuero is good ballclub, but we can't come out and we can't have the walks that put runners on and the errors that allow runners to score and that ends up being what absolutely sunk us tonight. And that's what's going to have to be cleaned up to give ourselves a chance on Tuesday.”

Beveridge was proud of how his defense did against Cuero in six out of seven innings, but that’s not good enough to win against a good team, he said.

The Apaches celebrated senior night for their three seniors (Weston Ruddock, Dakota DuBose and TJ Riojas) and Beveridge was proud to have these players on his team for the last two seasons.

“Couldn't have inherited a better group of seniors than last year and there's juniors that are now seniors this year and these guys have really carried our program and lead and this team has been through a lot of ups and downs,” Beveridge said.

The Apaches had only three seniors this season and fielded a team that started six freshmen.

“The leadership has been key and the way that these seniors have sat — I mean, I love senior night because I love to celebrate these guys. Obviously we want to celebrate them with a win. But these kids have done a fantastic job and they've owned the leadership role and they've taken over the program and that's been a big part for us,” Beveridge said.

The Apaches faced Cuero for the regular season finale Tuesday, April 23 and Gonzales needs to win to force a three-way play-in tournament with Cuero and San Antonio JFK.

“The good news is that we've been in this situation before and it's something that I think our kids understand that we're able to flush this game and treat Tuesday as its own like I told our kids you know we have to play like our backs against the wall but we can't play scared we got to come out and be aggressive and we have to play our brand of baseball and we've got to hit the baseball as plain and simple,” Beveridge said.

“We know that at times our defense has some errors or a mental mistake here and there but we have to put more runs on the board than just to put ourselves in a situation to win and that's going to be our goal is whatever it takes,” Beveridge added.