Chaminade Cup Filled by Rain, Scoreless Tie

A baseball game was played Tuesday to determine the best team in the Santa Fe League.

St. Genevieve High, sporting an 11-2 record, including a 5-0 mark in league play, versus 12-4 Chaminade, which had won all six of its league games.

And the winner was . . . nobody. Or everybody, depending on how you look at it. But the proverbial glass of water would have been neither half full, nor half empty. By game’s end, it would have flat runneth over.

St. Genevieve and Chaminade tied, 0-0. The game at Branford Park was called after seven innings, when a drizzle that started in the fourth worsened in the top of the eighth.

“We’ve been waiting for this game since December,” Chaminade Coach Steve Costley said. “It felt like we played it in December.

“I’ll take a tie, because we know it’ll come down to our place. Plus, I’m cold.”

The pitchers barely seemed to notice the weather.

St. Genevieve ace Roland De La Maza went seven innings and recorded two outs in the eighth before the game was called. He struck out 12 and gave up three hits. De La Maza did not allow a hit until the fifth, when Terry Moriarty and Dave Morrison led off the inning with back-to-back singles.

Greg Baumgartner, De La Maza’s counterpart, lasted 5 innings and gave up both of St. Genevieve’s hits. The second was a sixth-inning, leadoff triple to Joe Cascione. With one strike on the next batter--Alfonso Gutierrez--Baumgartner gave way to Kenny Meyer, who struck out Gutierrez, walked De La Maza, struck out Joe Chaparro and induced Don Alvarez to ground into a force play.

Meyer did not allow a hit.

“I was just so up for the game that the pressure didn’t bother me at all,” Meyer said.

Meyer came back to bloop a triple past right fielder Danny Enriquez to lead off the top of the seventh. De La Maza, however, worked out of the jam.

De La Maza (3-1, 0.93 ERA) whiffed Mike LeCocq on a curve, walked Moriarty and struck out Morrison on another curve. The ball got away from catcher Frank Aguirre and Morrison was safe at first. With the bases loaded, Tim Lavin struck out and Tony Collatos grounded to third.

De La Maza has 69 strikeouts in 37 innings.

“You know, I really wasn’t that nervous,” St. Genevieve Coach Kevin Kane said, gesturing toward the saturated field. “He’s an artist and this is his pallet.”

Chaminade hitters found him mostly unpalatable. The Baumgartner-Meyer tandem was no more appetizing for St. Genevieve.

They combined for five strikeouts and only five balls found their way out of the infield.

Baumgartner, who entered the game with a 3-0 record and a 2.01 ERA, did not allow a hit until Cascione’s single with two out in the third. He did not give up another until Cascione’s triple in the sixth.