The Sunray Bobcats have been showing in the 2024-25 school year just how much they like being in the big time.
Thursday afternoon in a Class 2A Division I bi-district playoff series against Floydada, the Bobcats weren’t the least bit intimidated by the spectra of a postseason series at Hodgetown, the Panhandle’s baseball Taj Mahal. In fact, they may have been energized by it.
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Sunray made a statement at the premiere venue by scoring a pair of 10-run mercy rule wins over Floydada, completing a sweep in the best-of-three series with a 13-1 five-inning victory, highlighted by sophomore Mason Gray throwing an abbreviated no-hitter.
The Bobcats (16-3) will face the winner of the New deal in the area round with the first of a three-game series starting at 2 p.m. at the Double Eagle Park in Canyon.
Sunray jumped on top early in game one, helped out by some erratic defense in the early innings to roll to a 12-2 win in six innings. The day typified the sort of athletic year the school’s boys programs have had, which included a 10-0 regular season in football.
“Our mindset has always been to keep competing every inning,” Sunray coach Keith Schulz said. “Keep your head down and when you look up at the end of the game you’ll see what the final score was. I thought we played very well against a pretty good opponent over there with a lot of young kids. I’m happy for what our guys did.”
The Bobcats didn’t waste much time in either game, especially the second one, where they seemed to smell blood in the water. Sunray put the first six batters on base in the bottom of the first en route to taking a 6-0 lead.
Luke Grajeda’s two-run triple to left-center off Floydada starter Ty Henderson gave the Bobcats a 3-0 lead and established the tone for the rest of the game. On pitch later Grajeda scored on a single by Ivan De La Rosa and it became apparent that the rout was getting started.
Grajeda also had a two-run triple in the third off Floydada reliever Manny De La Fuente to make it 10-0, and the only questions by then were if the Bobcats were going to pull off a second straight run-rule win and if Gray would get a no-hitter.
“That’s exactly what we planned to do from the beginning,” said Grajeda, one of several seniors in a standout athletic class. “We came in with a fire and ready to go. Whenever we were here out freshman year it didn’t go our way and we wanted to make sure this time it did. This is probably the best team I’ve played on here in four years.”
Grajeda’s freshman year, the Bobcats were swept by New Home in the area round at Hodgetown. Gray wasn’t around then, but he made sure to nail things down this year.
Floydada (7-15) couldn’t touch Gray, although he ran into some control problems by walking three and hitting a batter. The run he gave up was self-inflicted, as he made an errant pickoff throw with two outs in the top of the fifth which allowed Braiden Garcia to score from third.
That was about all there was to complain about in Gray’s effort, though. After he walked Adrian Martinez to lead off the second, Gray struck out six straight, and finished with 10 strikeouts.
“It was really just the fastball right down the middle and add a little velo to it,” Gray said. “They really couldn’t hit it. This is probably the greatest field I’ve ever been on and it’s an exciting time to celebrate it with the guys. It was a perfect game.”
In the first game, Sunray took advantage of five Floydada errors in the first two innings, resulting in four unearned runs.
Defense was a major factor on the day and it favored the Bobcats. They did commit one error in each game, but neither did much damage, while Floydada committed nine errors in 10 innings.
“It’s something that we preach a lot,” Schulz said. “We like to swing the bat, but when the bats aren’t there, further down the road we’re going to face some real good pitchers, and you’ve got to be able to play defense. I was proud of them with that today.”
Leadoff hitter Azriel Vargas had an RBI single in the top of the second, which resulted in another run when the ball was misplayed in the outfield for a 4-0 lead. On the next pitch, winning pitcher Parker Johnson belted a double to left-center to score Vargas, and Grajeda’s RBI single capped the inning to make it 6-0.
Back-to-back RBI doubles by De La Rosa and Gray in the fourth stretched Sunray’s lead to 8-1 and Johnson had another RBI double in the fifth to make it 9-2. With the bases loaded in the sixth, Floydada reliever R.J. McHam walked Arnold Mendoza, Vargas and Johnson to bring home three runs and give the Bobcats the run-rule margin.
The first two Floydada batters reached base in the sixth and the Whirlwinds looked as if they were going to push the game to the seventh. However, Johnson retired the next three batters in order to end the game early.
Johnson gave up only four hits in six innings and struck out six.