Nuñez, who becomes the latest in an assembly line of Pioneer baseball stars moving on to the next level, will be the fourth Diamondbacks’ senior baseball player to sign to play college sports this spring.
He will join a Saints squad filled with talent from across the RGV from Donna, Harlingen, Los Fresnos, Lyford and Weslaco, including former Sharyland High infielder Andrew Ogletree.
“I emailed coach (Bryan) Aughney, and maybe a day later he emailed me back saying, ‘Thank you for your interest, send your information over and maybe we can get something started,’” he said. “He just kind of made it feel like another home. That’s why I chose Our Lady of the Lake.”
Nuñez, a four-year letterman for the Diamondbacks on the diamond, played 95 career games for Pioneer and tallied an impressive .321 batting average, a .521 on-base percentage, 72 hits, 43 RBIs and 37 runs scored during his high school career.
The Diamondbacks senior also played a crucial role for the team on the mound during its thrilling march to Class 5A state semifinals as a junior, the first Valley baseball team to ever accomplish that feat. Nuñez recorded a 5-1 record in 9 appearances and tallied three complete games, one save and a no-hitter in 2019 while sporting a stellar 2.80 ERA.
“It wasn’t the fact that we were the most talented team, it was that we all bought into what coach (Casey Smith) was selling to us. We were all able to distinguish each other’s roles and fill in that role perfectly. That’s probably what took us to where we were at last year along with the camaraderie and chemistry we had,” Nuñez said.
“It honestly feels great because a lot of people thought that it wouldn’t be us. That’s why we always put ‘Why not us?’ in our Instagram posts and we always had that tag ‘#RR331’ because that was how many miles Round Rock was from us where the state tournament was,” he added. “We shocked a lot of people because everyone would always talk bad about us like we weren’t going to have a good team. Proving people wrong is one of the best feelings.”
Nuñez has trained with Cavazos at CSI for the better part of a decade and credits his trainer for spotting the potential in him and for pushing him to train harder, even when that meant getting creative while under lockdown.
“When I first came here in sixth grade, I wasn’t the fastest or the strongest, and I know that. Jaime saw that from the beginning and ever since then he just kept working with me and working with me. It’s kind of just helped me become stronger, not only physically but also mentally because baseball is one of the most tiring games mentally,” Nuñez said. “I really don’t have a lot of heavy stuff at home, so I would just grab a bucket of b... Click here to read full article
ARTICLE SOURCE:
