The difference between a team that fights into the playoffs and a team that just misses isn't always big.

Certainly there wasn't a big difference between Ysleta and Canutillo in what turned into a 7-4 Indian victory Thursday that secured the postseason, just a string of small ones in the biggest moments that added up to a tense, gutsy win.

"You can say that was pretty clutch pitching," coach David Aragon said after staff ace Justin Maese ended the game with a bases-loaded strikeout for a four-out save. "And two-out clutch hitting. That was about time we came back with some kind of clutch hitting, we've been struggling with that all season."

Bret Bloomquist

Ysleta (10-5 in District 2-4A) was able to win despite giving up at least two base runners each inning and having their final 12 batters retired. The Indians won because they stranded 14 Eagles (7-8) in seven innings and only gave up one RBI single in 14 Canutillo at-bats with runners in scoring position.

They won because of a key one-inning sequence starting in the bottom of the first when they led 1-0 but allowed Canutillo to load the bases with one out on two walks and a single.

Pitcher Arthur Flores didn't throw many strikes in an inning-plus when he walked five of seven batters he faced, but he coaxed a double-play ball that got the Indians out of the inning.


In the next frame, Ysleta's first two batters were retired, then Joseph Anaya beat out a 60-foot infield single, Damian Solis walked, Victor Gonzalez was hit by a pitch and Brandon Valenzuela's walk went for an RBI and a 2-0 lead. Then Maese, who spent most of the game at shortstop, did what Canutillo couldn't do all day and hit a two-out, three-run triple to stake his team to a 5-0 lead that soon enough was 6-0.

"I didn't expect that," Maese said. "I was thinking just get a base hit, get a couple of runs. I was surprised with" the triple.

As it turned out, Ysleta only got one more run after the second and didn't have a runner in the last three innings, but they clung to that lead the rest of the afternoon.

First, Valenzuela came on in relief with two on and no outs in the second. He battled and fought through 92 pitches and 4 2/3 innings, most of them fraught with peril, but he kept getting out of jams. He finally ran out of gas with runners on the corners and two outs in the sixth, his team up 7-4.

Maese came in from short, got a strikeout to end the inning, then struck out two of the first three batters in the seventh before hitting a batter and issuing a walk. He ended the game with a huge strikeout.

"It was a really close game, that makes it interesting, I'm glad we could come out with a win," Maese said. "I wasn't worried, I knew we would come through."

The Indians didn't do it by the biggest of margins, but as has so often been the case, they found a way and their season marches on.

Bret Bloomquist may be reached at 546-6359.