ALBUQUERQUE — The Horsemen of St. Michael's chose a bad day to have a bad inning as they played a bad baseball game.

The Horsemen were eliminated from the Class AAA State Baseball Championships on Thursday, losing to the Socorro Warriors 10-3.

In the fateful second inning, the Warriors scored six runs on only two hits at Albuquerque St. Pius High X High School field.

"We gave them runs. You can't do that," said St. Michael's head coach Kenneth Duran.

Duran saw a Horseman team that he had seen early in the season. He thought that team was dead and buried, but it showed up against when he least wanted it.

"We had a horrible start on the season," he noted. "We were terrible, but we turned it around. We went on a 14-game win streak. (Thursday), we went back to the way we played early."

The game was scoreless going into the bottom of the second inning. Then the sky fell on the Horsemen.

With two walks and a single, Socorro scored the first run of the game.

Two ground balls gave St. Michael's a chance to get out of the inning with only minimal damage. But Elias Mora hit a bases-loaded double for two more runs and Horsemen starting pitcher Collin Friedman was replaced by Mike Hernandez.

Two walks loaded the bases again and an error by second baseman Wesley Vaughan gave the Warriors two more runs.

St. Michael's actually had seven hits to six for Socorro, but those hits did not come at the right times for the Horsemen.

"We had opportunities," Duran pointed out. "And we had the right guys up at the right time. We went up there and we didn't take advantage. You have to get the big hits at the right times."

The only big hitter for the Horsemen was Mikey Padilla. He had three doubles in four at-bats and scored a run.

All three of the Horsemen's runs were unearned.

In the fourth inning, Jake Winter doubled and scored on a Socorro error.

In the fifth inning, Tommy Martinez singled to right and went to second on an error.

A wild pitch moved him to third and Dakota Benavidez sacrificed him home. Padilla doubled and scored on another error.

"Ending the season like this is unfair to these guys," Duran explained. "I wish the state tournament was double elimination like it is in softball. In a game like this, it's a matter of who executes when they have an opportunity and we didn't execute today."