3-A Baseball Final : Single Run Enough for Helix

Jerry Schniepp, Helix High School’s baseball coach, kept pointing to little things such as defense and execution. Few looked, instead casting their eyes on pitcher Rick Navarro’s perfect season and Helix’s .320 team batting average.

In the end, Schniepp was right. A couple of little things added up to a big victory Thursday afternoon as Helix scored an unearned run in the bottom of the sixth to beat Santana, 1-0, in the San Diego Section 3-A final at the University of San Diego.

It was Helix’s 19th consecutive victory and third over its Grossmont League rival this season. And it was the second consecutive loss in the 3-A final for Santana (23-8), which has reached the championship game in four of the past five years.

Navarro (14-0), a left-hander who was 2-4 as a junior, completed the season with a three-hit shutout, cooling a Santana team that outscored three previous playoff opponents, 25-0. It was his sixth shutout of the year.

Navarro’s pitching kept Helix (26-2) in the game, but two plays by right fielder Dan Tiumalu gave the top-seeded Highlanders their first championship since they defeated El Capitan, 4-2, in 1963.

The first came in the top of the sixth after Santana’s Darrin Forster hit a two-out triple to right. Shortstop Barry O’Gorman ripped an 0-1 pitch to nearly the same spot, but Tiumalu slid into the dropping ball for a diving catch and the final out.

“It was in the gap, and I thought (Rich Pedrin) was there,” Tiumalu said. “I saw he wasn’t there, so I just ran. I knew I was going to get it, but the only way I was going to get it was to dive for it.

“I had a feeling that was the turning point.”

He wasn’t the only one. The run-saving catch seemed to ignite the Highlanders, who had beaten Santana, 5-4 and 9-5, during league play.

“That fired us up,” Navarro said. “I know that fired me up. I was just praying one of those guys would catch it.”

Said Schniepp, in his first season as coach after serving three as an assistant: “It was a great catch. It was a big spark for us. But Danny came up with the great offensive play too.”

Tiumalu set up Helix’s run with a perfectly executed hit-and-run in the bottom of the sixth.

With one out, Rich Haar reached first on an error by O’Gorman. Tiumalu then hit a one-hop single just to the right of second base. Haar, running on the pitch, easily reached third. Jason Ledford hit a fly ball to left to score Haar.

That put the game in the left hand of Navarro, who has had his problems against Santana.

The Sultans came into the game hitting .340 and had 10 hits off of Navarro in each of their two losses. And Navarro, with a 1.29 earned-run average over 97 innings coming in, said he expected more of the same.

“This team is the reason why I have an ERA,” Navarro said. “I have an ERA of 4.10 against them. That’s why I was nervous going into this game. They can hit the hell out of the ball.”

He had little trouble this time, allowing Forster’s triple and two singles. Navarro, who entered the game with a county-leading 135 strikeouts, appropriately sealed the title by striking out Jeff Wagner.

After the pitch, catcher Rick Page jumped into Navarro’s arms. They have been playing baseball together since Little League, and Page won Navarro’s no-hitter against Grossmont earlier in the season by scoring the game’s only run.

“We talked about (winning the title) when we were sophomores,” Navarro said. “We thought that when we were seniors we’d like to be the best.”