Disappointment Grows for Santana

Disappointment came in several forms for the Santana baseball team after its 1-0 loss to Helix Thursday.

The defeat in the San Diego Section 3-A championship game not only left the team with the empty feeling of disappointment it had carried over from last year’s final, a 7-2 loss to Mt. Carmel. It also sparked a raging fire of frustration because it was the Sultans’ third loss to Helix this season.

Santana (23-8) did not give up an earned run in its four playoff games and had outscored its opponents, 25-0, in the previous three before Helix’s Rich Haar belly-flopped home with an unearned run in the bottom of the sixth.

“I would give anything to have won this year,” said Bruce Moutaw, a senior second baseman and one of two players back from the 1986 team that did win the title. “They beat us twice (before) this season, and we wanted them even more.”

Moutaw and third baseman Jason Cabral had a winning feeling as a part of the ’86 team that beat Mt. Carmel, 7-2. But no one else had experienced it.

“Me and Jason know what it’s like to win this thing,” Moutaw said. “We know, these other guys don’t know. It’s the greatest thing in the world. This is probably the worst feeling. We worked so hard during the playoffs. We thought nothing could beat us.”

Coach Jim Saska chose as his starting pitcher Jeff Matranga (8-2), his ace during the season, over Paul Newark, his ace during the playoffs. Matranga gave up just three hits but was victimized by an error and by a poor throw from left fielder John Barnhill on Jason Ledford’s medium-deep sacrifice fly, which scored Haar without a play.

Santana, batting .340 coming in, managed just a triple and two singles off winner Rick Navarro, who looked as if he could be hit at the start but got stronger as the game went on.

“We’ve hit him hard all year,” Cabral said of earlier 5-4 and 9-5 losses. “He spots the ball well and gets us to hit into the ground.

“When we won (in ‘86) it felt like you were on top of the world. Now it don’t feel like nothing. We just didn’t get the breaks, that’s all.”

Shortstop Barry O’Gorman, who couldn’t come up with Haar’s one-out grounder in the sixth, said this loss hurt more than last year’s.

“Last year we were just glad to play in (San Diego Jack Murphy) stadium,” O’Gorman said. “This year, here, we came to win. It was just Santana’s luck this year. We hit the ball hard but right at people.”

Saska said his wife put the game’s importance in perspective.

“I said, ‘This is the biggest game of my life.’ She said, ‘You’ve been saying that now for three years.’ I know coaches who have been coaching here for 20 years, and they’ve never been (to the finals). We’ve been here for three years now. I’m very proud of that.

“I’ve been frustrated for a whole year. I wanted to get back here and win it. Now I’m going to be frustrated for another year.”