Demons survive epic battle with St. Michael’s
With the sun below the horizon, Santa Fe High’s Apodaca drives in game-winner in 12th inning
History will remember Saturday’s marathon Santa Fe High-St. Michael’s baseball game as one of the best ever played between the intracity rivals. The ingredients were this: clutch hitting in key moments, outstanding pitching from five players over an exhaustive 12 innings, a game that lasted past sunset and, oh by the way, the championship of the Jim Pierce Memorial Tournament was on the line.
“You hate to see anyone lose a game like this,” said Demons head coach Ian Farris after his team wrapped up a dramatic 4-3 win in a game that lasted more than three hours and didn’t end until 7:24 p.m. — almost 15 minutes after the sun went down.
The Demons were awarded their second straight Pierce Memorial trophy while illuminated by the backdrop of headlights from an idling truck in the nearby parking area. The tournament’s all-tournament team was announced as the facility was starting to disappear into darkness.
It was Santa Fe High’s second straight title in the annual tournament hosted by the Horsemen, and one that capped a solid weekend in which the Demons’ offense took a back seat to its pitching. In three games, the unit surrendered just eight runs over 23 innings.
Saturday’s winner was Izaiah Apodaca. The senior flamethrower came on in relief in the bottom of the seventh and worked six scoreless frames, allowing just three hits with half a dozen strikeouts. His 85-mile-an-hour fastball looked like triple digits as daylight began to fade.
“Gotta be honest,” said St. Michael’s cleanup hitter Sean Latham as he came back to the dugout after popping out to short in the last of the 12th, “I can’t hardly see anything right now.”
Santa Fe High shortstop Manny Martinez caught that popup, and did so after watching the ball nearly disappear into the matte navy/gray sky stretching out above him.
“It was getting hard to pick up the ball,” he said. “You can’t take your eye off it or you’ll lose it.”
Apodaca, James Catanach and Zach Russell earned all-tournament honors for Santa Fe High (6-4), with Apodaca being named the tournament’s most valuable player. He helped bring home the game-winning run in the 12th by chopping a ball to third that was throw away and allowed Martinez to score from second with the decisive run.
It was in that inning where both coaches agreed to implement the international tiebreaker rule to help break a 3-all deadlock that had stood since the seventh. Each frame starts with a running at second base.
Horsemen head coach Augie Ruiz said umpire Matt Martinez gave the coaches two options as the 11th inning came to a close and the sun having already gone down. The first was reverting back to the last completed inning in which either team
held the lead. That was the sixth when James Hena’s infield single plated Jonah Baca to give the Horsemen a 3-2 advantage.
“I didn’t want to win the game that way and I don’t know if anyone wanted it to end like that,” Ruiz said. “The other option was the international rule.”
If the game hadn’t ended in the 12th — the only frame in which the international rule was applied — it would have been suspended until a date and location to be determined. It could not have been played Sunday and was unlikely to happen Monday.
“I’m just glad it ended the way it did when it did,” Apodaca said. “I kind of got lucky. I relied a lot on fastballs, and if it hadn’t gotten dark, I think they were about to start catching up to me. It ended up working out.”
Apodaca said he felt like he was going to pass out due to arm exhaustion.
“I was throwing as hard as I could every pitch, and those last two innings I felt like I was barely getting it over the plate,” he said.
The Demons stranded six runners in scoring position from the seventh inning on as Horsemen starter Latham and reliever Raul Lopez continually worked out of trouble. Latham was as brilliant in his time on the mound, striking out 11 while allowing eight hits in eight innings. Four of those hits came in the seventh when Santa Fe High rallied to tie it and force extra innings.
It started with a single by Adrian Ortega, then singles by James Catanach and Nathan Hield to load the bases. Apodaca tied it with an infield single to second, but the potential goahead run was cut down at the plate to end the threat.
The Horsemen then stranded the potential winning run in scoring position in the seventh, eighth, 10th, 11th and 12th innings. It was a frustrating end for a team that came oh-so-close to getting the big hit against Apodaca.
“It was just one of those games where it was one bad hop and we’re there,” Ruiz said. “It is what it is. They pushed the run across and we didn’t execute a ground ball, and that’s that.”
TOURNAMENT NOTES
Bernalillo defeated Cobre 7-0 to capture third place, while Taos shut out Raton, 9-0, for fifth place. … Española Valley beat Pojoaque Valley, 3-2, to finish seventh. … Marcos Leyba was 3-for-6 in Saturday’s game for St. Michael’s while Eric Romero was 3-for-5. Jonah Baca added two hits. … Catanach, Nathan Hield and Apodaca each had two hits for the Demons.