As the baseball and softball seasons at Belen High School move into their final week, the baseball team is left playing for pride, and the softball team has to hope for help to get to the state playoffs.

The Lady Eagles softball team needs Albuquerque Academy to lose its remaining two games against Oñate. And Belen is going to need to do something that no other team in the district has been able to accomplish this season — beat Silver High — when the two teams meet for a doubleheader on Tuesday at Silver City.

“Unfortunately, you don’t want to put yourself in the position where you have to depend on another team, but we placed ourselves in that position, and, right now, it’s just game by game and day to day,” head coach Nettie Salas said.

The Lady Eagles play a doubleheader with Deming on Saturday and will need a clean sweep in Deming and to win both games against district pace-setters the Silver High Fighting Colts.

The Lady Eagles are 4-4 in District 3-4A play. If they win their four remaining games, that would boost them up to 8-4, which might be good enough to claim second place. Academy stands at 6-3 with three games left to play. If Academy wins just two of those games, the Chargers clinch second place and a state playoff spot because they own the tie-breaker over Belen after winning two-out-of-three regular season meetings.

“It’s tough for a team to travel, but the way I see it is the girls have played well on the road, and I don’t think it’s going to play a factor,” Salas said. “We won’t be making any excuses for what happens.”

Right now, it is imperative that the Lady Eagles finish out the season strong if they hope to get a state playoff bid.

“We absolutely have to finish the season with four wins on the road,” Salas said. “The girls just have to get off the bus and play.”

Baseball — The Eagle baseball team stumbled coming out of the District 3-4A blocks and has lost 12 straight games, dating back to a 17-0 beating at the hands of the Los Lunas Tigers on March 19. Before the losing streak, the Eagles were 3-2 after splitting doubleheaders with Gallup and Socorro and beating Los Alamos.

The Eagles let things get out of hand against Los Lunas after the game was close through four innings. After the loss, the Eagles were never able to get back on track.

The Eagle baseball team plays host to the Deming Wildcats on Saturday in the season finale. The doubleheader will start at 1 p.m. at the Eagles’ Nest .

The set of games will be the farewell for the team’s six seniors: shortstop Michael Garcia, pitcher Michael John Schmock, outfielder Eric Gregor, catcher Steven Gutierrez, center fielder Robert Rimorin and third baseman/pitcher Angelo Gabaldon.

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Tony McClary