Gunnison kicks off baseball season against Rye

The Gunnison High School baseball team kicked off the 2026 season last week against Rye at home.

Head coach Tom Percival noted that this year’s team is young and is lacking experience, but he is impressed by their hard work and ability to be coachable this early into the season.

Percival is now in his 24th year as the head coach of the Gunnison baseball team and his 31st with the program.

The team features four returning starters, five seniors, four juniors and the rest underclassmen.

“Right now, we have a lot of versatility, a lot of guys that can play several different positions, which is good,” said Percival. “Now it's a matter of just finding what makes it, how to get the best nine on the field at the same time.”

The season is young, but the Cowboys are focusing on improving each day and learning how to compete, noted Percival. He also emphasized that he wants to continue to work on the boys baseball IQ specifically.

The Cowboys were supposed to open their season with a home game against Cedaredge on Tuesday, March 10, but a lockdown on campus forced the game to be postponed to a later date.

Instead, the Cowboys opened their season by hosting Rye on Thursday, March 12. The boys lost 7-6, behind a couple errors in the top of the seventh inning.

The Cowboys held a 6-4 lead heading into the seventh inning, but a three-spot by the Thunderbolts in the top of the seventh gave them a 7-6 lead and the Cowboys were unable to score a run in the home half of the seventh, ending the game. 

Despite the loss, Percival was impressed with the performance on the mound by both pitchers and the way the Cowboys swung the bats in the game.

Ethan Pierce started the game on the mound and gave up two earned runs and five hits, while walking one and striking out six in three innings. In-relief, Jorge Perez gave up two earned runs on five hits, walked two and struck out five in the final four innings. 

Perez also had the team’s only multi-hit game going 2-for-5 and scoring two runs. Pierce went 1-for-3 with two RBIs. Cody Casebolt went 1-for-3 with two runs and two walks, Jack Stone went 1-for-3 with a walk, Nolan Frymoyer went 1-for-3 with an RBI, Deegan Bennett went 1-for-4 with a double, Cesar Marmolejo went 1-for-3 with two runs and Asher Woytek went 1-for-2 with a RBI and two walks.

“We still have to work on some situational hitting to push some runs across that would have helped us in the end,” said Percival. “I thought we had some kids do some good things. It was just a matter of a hit here or there to bust it open.”

The Cowboys are heading down to Arizona to play three games in three days in a tournament during spring break this week. 

First, Gunnison will play Shadow Mountain (5-3-1) on Thursday, March 19, then they’ll play Idaho Falls (3-1) on Friday, March 20, and finally they’ll finish with a matchup against Highland (9-1) on Saturday, March 21. 

This is the second year in a row that Percival has brought the Cowboys to this tournament. 

Percival wants the boys to really work on the process as well as communication while down in Arizona.

“Last year we went down there and we played three really good teams,” said Percival. “We didn't end up very good on the scoreboard, but I think our kids got better because of it, because it kind of kept it in perspective as to why we were down there and what we were trying to do.

And then came back and we were a better baseball team when we returned.”