High School Roundup : Lee Pitches No-Hitter; Madison Wins Title

Friday afternoon at Madison High School, fourth period. Matt Lee walks out to the baseball field with Coach Bob Roeder to do a little work. He plops down in front of home plate on a bench, which is holding down the tarp. He sits and stares at the pitcher’s mound.

Later Friday afternoon at Madison High School, fourth inning. Lee walks out to that same pitcher’s mound, this time staring in at the plate. He has a slim lead, a moving fastball and a rude changeup.

And a few innings later, he has a no-hitter, giving host Madison a 9-0 victory over Vista in the championship game of the Madison Warhawk Tournament.

This against a Vista team (6-1-1) that had scored 90 runs in seven games. This against a Vista team that has twice scored 20 in one game.

Didn’t matter to Lee.

“I thought about it,” Lee said. “It just pumped me up more. I like it better when there is a challenge.”

There was a challenge in the third inning, when Lee walked two batters. A sacrifice bunt put them on second and third with one out, but Lee got Scott Collins to ground out and then struck out Brian Fleming.

That was as close as Vista came to scoring. The only times the Panthers even hinted at getting a hit came in the fifth and sixth, but Madison third baseman Pete Valdez canceled both. In the fifth, Valdez scooped up pinch-hitter Joey Garcia’s sharp bouncer, and in the sixth, Valdez dove to his left to stop Rodney DeLeon’s hard grounder.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t think I’d get to the one I had to dive for,” Valdez said.

Valdez, a three-year starter at third, gave Madison (7-1) a 2-0 lead in the third inning by yanking a fastball over the left field fence 325 feet away.

Two innings later, Madison hammered Vista with five runs. Albert Mendiola, Valdez and Brett Brown all singled, Frank Fontenot tripled two runs home and Robbie Hoffman hit an inside-the-park homer.

The only thing left was the Lee watch.

Maybe something unusual should have been expected, because while Vista right fielder Reggie DeLeon was busy losing two balls in the sun during Madison’s five-run fifth, the moon was high in the sky behind him. It was as if the cosmos, as well as Lee, was toying with Vista.

“I was slipping out there earlier,” Lee said of his four walks. “My spikes weren’t feeling right. I wasn’t driving my ball down at all.”

But the senior, who is now 12-0 in his Madison career (9-0 last year), found his footing enough to keep Vista off balance with a repertoire consisting of a fastball, slider and changeup.

“He’s a mad dog,” Roeder said. “He’ll never stop. He showed a lot of composure.”