SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
The state championship will be played this weekend. District 1 champion and host, the Monsters drew a bye and open the Regional at St. Michael’s on day two, Aug. 4, against the Texas West-New Mexico champion
By ARNIE LESHIN, Santa Fe Today
All the Santa Fe Monsters can do is continue to wait.
Back on Saturday July 8, they turned back the Espanola All-Stars for the District 1 Little League Junior baseball championship at Franklin Miles Park.
At the same time, they were still lining up the fields for the New Mexico state title, as well as those in Texas East, Texas West, Colorado, and Louisiana.
So they played first round games this past weekend, and this weekend it will be for the state championships that will complete the field when the first pitch is thrown at the Horsemen Field August 3.
And the Monsters continue to wait. They are the host team that drew a first-round in the six-team field, which means playing on day two and waiting even more.
Who knows what manager Mark Quintana is doing to keep his Monsters busy. Practices for sure. The movies? Hiking? Maybe visits to McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy’s, hanging out at the malls, and most important, make certain the players have their minds set on what’s ahead, for the winner here gets to play in the International World Series in Taylor, Mich., Aug. 13-20.
No doubt the Monsters are the underdogs. All five state champions come in tournament-tough, all playing while the Santa Fe team had no one to play against but itself. And so they must keep running, hitting, fielding, pitching, and all the other things that gets a team ready to compete. One thing though, they should have the most support in the Regional.
Meanwhile, there’s not yet been tracking down what’s happening in Texas, Colorado and Louisiana, that’s been reserved for what happening in the Land of Enchantment.
And it hasn’t been easy. They were split up for the opening round, playing at West Mesa LL in Albuquerque, and at the Bob Forest Sports Complex in Carlsbad, with two teams from each site advancing to this weekend’s state finals back in Carlsbad.
The results from Carlsbad were later than sooner. The tournament host returned phone calls the day after the finals. He gave the scores and who moved on to his site.
No such thing from Albuquerque. That was tougher. Phone calls and emails didn’t get the attention of that tournament host or even state district president Sam Gomez and state district secretary Pam Stanley.
You want scores, well in Carlsbad Copper City LL of District 7 defeated Albuquerque Roadrunner LL of District 5, 5-1, but then lost to Shorthorn LL of District 6, 7-1, while Roadrunner ousted Copper, 9-1.
So Shorthorn, playing only once because of the bye, and Roadrunner, at 1-1, advanced. Roadrunner was the No. 2 team and will face La Plaza LL of Las Vegas’ District 4 in game one Friday night at 6. Game two has Shorthorn lining up against North Valley of District 8, which finished second in Albuquerque.
No scores here, but La Plaza opened by defeating Rotary LL of District 2, and North Valley followed by winning over Albuquerque Westgate of District 9. La Plaza then turned back North Valley to gain the top spot at 2-0, and North Valley went 2-1 to claim the other berth.
Hopefully, it won’t be as difficult to obtain results from the state championships. Hopefully, it won’t take several wake-up calls to get the goods for this double-elimination showdown.
And the Santa Fe Monsters wait. They are scheduled to open at the Regional’s second day on Friday at 9 a.m. versus the Thursday game one winner of Texas West and the New Mexico champion. The other day one contest has game two matching up Texas East against Louisiana, with
Colorado receiving a bye and meeting the winner on Friday.
It’s double-elimination and will continue with loser’s bracket games on Saturday. On Sunday, there will the winner’s bracket contest that will decide who remains unbeaten and who drops into the loser’s bracket. Plus, there will be a loser’s bracket game where the loser is eliminated, followed by the last of the loser’s bracket series.
The semifinals are slated for Monday morning, and if the team that comes from the loser’s bracket wins, it will need to win a second time the same day.
The Regional field had included Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma, but all three dropped out for various reasons, one of which was not able to gather the funds to make the trip to the City Different.
They will be playing ball at the St. Michael’s Christian Brothers Athletic Complex, but the Monsters will have to hang in there and continue to wait.
