HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL ROUNDUP : Sweetwater Pitching Is Resurfacing

After being lost in the shuffle of the deck for most of the season, Sweetwater’s ace has resurfaced in the AAA division of the Lions baseball tournament.

Tuesday afternoon against visiting Helix, Sweetwater led, 2-0, in the top of the seventh. Issac Bruce trotted to the mound, where starter Lorenzo Inzunza handed him the ball with the bases loaded and one out.

“We talked before the game,” Bruce said. “I told him I wanted to play. He knew I wanted to play.”

Here was his chance. Bruce struck out a batter, then got the third out and the save by forcing the next batter to ground out to second. Sweetwater will play Orange Glen today in a semifinal at 10:30 at Monte Vista.

“I wasn’t scared or nervous,” Bruce said. “They didn’t know who to expect.”

Seems nobody knows exactly what to expect from Sweetwater’s pitching these days. Bruce made his first appearance in over a month Monday and earned a save in a 2-0 victory over Mt. Miguel by striking out three of the five batters he faced.

“He was our ace coming into the season,” Sweetwater Coach Gene Alim said. But Sweetwater’s starting rotation has resembled a roulette wheel recently, with Bruce, Larry Meza and Inzunza being injured at various stages--none were pitching at one point, and Meza is still healing. Alim said he will try and get Meza to pitch an inning or two today.

No one would flinch if Sweetwater came back with a performance resembling Inzunza’s. The sophomore right-hander had a no-hitter going for 6 2/3 innings before, according to Inzunza, Helix caught on.

“I thought I’d be able to pull it off,” Inzunza said, “But they figured me out, they started picking me up.”

With two outs, Helix’s Bill Bodenstadt and Rob Ippolito hit back-to-back singles. But Inzunza forced the next hitter to pop out to second.

Sweetwater scored its runs in the second, on an RBI single by Eric Denham and on a balk.

Mike Romero led off with a single. Ippolito struck out the next batter, then Juan Lopez singled to right and Yoshio Ohkawa walked. Romero scored Denham’s hit to right, and Lopez scored on Ippolito’s balk.

Helix (9-6-1) finished frustrated with just five hits.

“We’re struggling at the plate,” Helix Coach Jerry Schneipp said. “We just can’t seem to come up with clinch hits. And it’s really tough when you’re getting such great pitching.”

Sweetwater was worried about Ippolito, especially after his two strikeouts in the first inning.

“He’s a guy capable of striking out two every inning,” Alim said, “but we talked about that. We wanted to get less movement on the bat.”