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Saturday’s marathon championship game played into the dark

Saturday’s marathon championship game played into the dark brought defending champion Santa Fe High a 4-3 win over host and neighboring rival St. Michael’s in the Jim Pierce Memorial tourney It went 12 innings and included a classic seven innings of relief by Demons’ hard hitting Izaiah Apodoca in what was a well-played 3-hour contest

By Arnie Leshin 
Arnie Leshin

As nightfall began to set in and the clock read 7:20, the clash for the Jim Pierce Memorial baseball tournament championship finally came to an end after 12 innings late Saturday afternoon.

For the second straight year, Santa Fe High clutched the championship trophy, this time in an epic 4-3 win over neighboring rival St. Michael’s, the tourney host.

It lasted more than an exhaustive three hours. It began with the sun shining and concluded with darkness taking over at the Horsemen’s Christian Brothers Athletic Complex.

But it was a good game, well played. There were key hits, some handy fielding, and quality pitching, topped off by headlights from a truck to bring some light on the facility.

Under first-year head coach Ian Farris, the Demons (6-4) have displayed sound pitching, which held opponents to eight runs over 24 innings. Their big bat has been senior Izaiah Apodaca, but this time he called on his pitching arm.

He came on in the bottom of the seventh and worked six scoreless innings. He was touched for only three hits while striking out a dozen.

As St. Michael’s came to bat down by a run in the 12th frame, there was very little light. And after the Horsemen’s cleanup batter, Sean Latham, returning to the dugout after popping up to short, he admitted he could hardly see anything. It was Latham who also did the pitching for the home team.

Said Manny Martinez, the Santa Fe High shortstop who caught the popup: “It was getting hard to pick up the ball.”

Except that Apodoca was able to pick up the baseball and Zach Russell earned All-Tournament honors for the Dems, with hard-hitting, solid pitching Apodoca selected as the tournament’s most valuable player.

It was Apodoca, who clouted five home runs in the tournament, helped to bring in what became the game-winning run by dropping a ball down the third base line, a wild throw occurred, and allowed Martinez to score from second and break the 3-3 tie.

It was to be the final inning agreed to by Farris and St. Michael’s head coach, Augie Ruiz, and they also inserted the international tiebreaker that is often used in softball. Each inning starts with a runner at second, but when it was just too dark, plate umpire Matt Martinez agreed on one more half inning.

It was in the sixth frame that the Horsemen took a 3-2 lead when senior James Hena’s infield single got base runner Jonah Baca across the plate.
From there, the Demons knotted the score and unknotted it with what proved to be the game-winning run.

If it was tied after 12, the game would be called. There might have been talk about continuing play on Sunday or Monday, but that was ruled out.
St. Michael’s (3-4) put runners aboard in the seventh, the eighth, the 10th, 11th and the 12th, but it became frustrating looking for a key hit against the 85 mile-an-hour Apodoca fastball

Third place went to Bernalillo in a 7-0 win over Cobre. Taos shut out Raton, 9-0, for fifth place, and for seventh place it was Espanola Valley over Pojoaque Valley, 3-2.

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