Kannon Shore delivers a pitch in the first inning against Fort Thomas. Photo by Dave Lumia 
Diego Padilla gets some encouragement from first-base coach Adan Rodriguez after drawing a walk. Photo by Dave Lumia 
Second baseman Josh Woods makes the grab on a pop fly. Photo by Dave Lumia 
The Lobos take in the action from the dugout railing. Photo by Dave Lumia 
Troy Hawkins makes contact on one of his three hits. Photo by Dave Lumia 
Kannon Shore eyes a pitch that’s low and away. Photo by Dave Lumia
The Patagonia Lobos are no strangers to baseball’s mercy rule.
The rule, which is designed to encourage sportsmanship and focus on competitive, respectful play, shortens a game to five innings when the score differential is 10 or more runs or four innings with a differential of 15 or more.
Patagonia has been on the short end of the mercy rule 26 times over the previous three seasons.
What’s different about 2026 is it’s the Lobos’ opponents who are in need of mercy.
Patagonia improved to 4-1 on the young season with a five-inning, 12-1 victory on Tuesday over Fort Thomas. That’s the Lobos’ second mercy-rule win – following a 14-4 win over San Simon in the season’s opening week. Junior Kannon Shore pitched all five innings, giving up two hits, walking four and striking out 13 Apaches. Freshman first baseman Troy Hawkins led the Lobos at the plate with three singles, a walk and three runs batted in.
It was the second consecutive dominant outing for Shore, who struck out 10 and gave up no hits over 4 1/3 innings in an 8-2 victory over Baboquivari on Friday.
“He’s starting to get some confidence going, starting to believe in his stuff, throwing strikes, not nibbling,” coach Ryan Shore said. “Overall he’s doing really well.”
In Tuesday’s win, Fort Thomas scored its only run in the first inning on a walk, a stolen base, a throwing error and an infield single. The Lobos answered right back with two runs in the bottom half of the inning, loading the bases on singles by Hawkins and Shore and a walk by Patrick Rohde, followed by a hard-hit ground ball by Miguel Albarran that the Apaches couldn’t handle.
After Shore struck out the side in the top of the second, the Lobos sent 13 batters to the plate and scored seven times. Hawkins had two of their four hits in the inning, and they also capitalized on four walks, a hit batter and three Fort Thomas errors.
The Lobos scored three more in the third, getting a double from Rohde, three walks and two hit batters.
Patagonia and Fort Thomas will play again in late April, and Ryan Shore expects a much tougher battle. The Apaches won the 1A state basketball championship on Feb. 27 and were playing their first game after only four practices, given that many of the same players are on both teams.
“It was tough for them,” Shore said. “They’ll be a much better team when we play them a second time.”
In the win over Baboquivari, Kannon Shore and Hawkins teamed up to no-hit the Warriors until one out in the seventh inning. The Lobos also played error-free ball until the final inning.
“I will take that all the time,” Ryan Shore said. “That’s something we’ve worked really hard on. We’re not making mistakes, which is a huge part of winning.”
Kannon Shore reached base three times and scored three runs, and Rohde drove in three runs with a single and two sacrifice flies.
“Winning is the best feeling in the world,” Rohde said, “especially when you feel like you deserve it.”
And success breeds more success. “Once we got those first two wins, our confidence shot up,” Kannon Shore said. “It’s a lot easier to win when you’re not playing scared.”
The Lobos are off the rest of this week for spring break and don’t play again until a March 20 home game against San Manuel.
“We have a really, really tough part of our schedule coming up,” Ryan Shore said. “I didn’t know we could do this, but this is what I envisioned when I saw our schedule: Take advantage of this early part and get a little confidence going. I can see it with the guys – they’re getting confidence, believing in each other, which is nice.”