North Baseball Stars beat South and Win Series

Steve Halweg, Esperanza High School pitcher, had to leave after four innings of the North-South State High School All-Star game Sunday because of a stiff arm and the North scored 11 runs off his successors to defeat the South, 12-10, on Billy Herbert Field at Stockton.

The North won the 18th annual series, two game to one. The South won the opening game Friday night, 17-8, but the North came back to win Saturday, 6-3.

Halweg, a senior left-hander who was 15-2 for the Southern Section 4-A champion Aztecs, yielded only one hit and an unearned run before he was replaced by Wayne Helm of Laguna Hills with the South leading, 6-1.

Helm walked four and allowed five runs in only of an inning as the North tied the score, 6-6.

Part of the reason for Helm’s control problem may have been the bone bruise he suffered on his pitching hand when he was struck by a Jim Florentino line drive in the first inning of Saturday’s game. Helm left that game for X-rays, which were negative.

Garden Grove’s Jim Kiefer, who was 7-2 with a 1.01 earned-run average for the Argonauts this season, replaced Helm and got the final out of the fifth. But in the sixth, Kiefer, who was the losing pitcher, gave up six runs as the North took the lead, 12-6.

First baseman Bobby Hamelin of Irvine was 2 for 4 with an RBI, and catcher Eric Cox of Esperanza was 2 for 3 with a double and an RBI for the South. Third baseman Jim Doyle of Fountain Valley was 1 for 2 with a double and an RBI.

Halweg, Cox, Hamelin, Doyle and Helm were picked were named to the all-state team that will travel to Oklahoma next weekend for another tournament.