Organ Mountain baseball's Ryo Rivera has been voted the Las Cruces Sun-News Athlete of the Week for March 31-April 5 in a poll decided on by readers.
Rivera was one of 12 baseball, softball and powerlifting nominees from Las Cruces, Centennial and Organ Mountain. Fellow nominees included Organ Mountain baseball's Brennan McNiece and Devyn Graces, Centennial baseball's Israel Molina and Gilberto Torres, Las Cruces baseball's Gunnar Guardiola, Centennial softball's Destiny Perez and Amanda Valles, Organ Mountain softball's Hannah Justus and Leah Melero and Centennial girls' powerlifting's Aliyah Salas and Mariah Caesar.
Rivera received a majority of the vote at 56.12% with 5,674 total votes. McNiece was the next-closest vote-getter at 3,593 votes, making up 35.54% of the 10,111 total votes cast.
Rivera, a junior, earned seven RBIs across a three-game series against Gadsden and recorded five total hits, including a double and a triple. This season, he has recorded a .281 batting average with 16 hits, 11 RBIs, nine runs scored, four doubles and one triple. Rivera has also registered a .679 on-base plus slugging percentage.
The Knights (12-4-1, 6-0 District 3-5A) completed a sweep of Alamogordo this week to maintain their unbeaten district record, taking down the Tigers twice on Thursday on the road with 9-1 and 5-4 victories. Organ Mountain faces Las Cruces (14-3, 5-1) in its next district series, with the first game at Organ Mountain at 7 p.m. Monday and the next two games at Las Cruces in a doubleheader starting at 5 p.m. Thursday.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Organ Mountain's Ryo Rivera is the Athlete of the Week
