3-A BASEBALL : Mira Mesa’s Hause Faces Bonita Vista

Were it not for his own team, Jorge Millan might be the best-kept secret of the 1992 high school baseball season.

He plays for Bonita Vista, perhaps the best secret.

Oh, and confidentially, Millan and his unheralded teammates will take on the county’s biggest headliners--Mira Mesa and its ace left-hander, Brendan Hause--in tonight’s San Diego Section 3-A championship game at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Time for the final game of the championship tripleheader is 7 p.m.--preceded by the 1-A game at 1 and the 2-A game at 4. Tickets are $5 (good for all three games, open seating).

Third-seeded Mira Mesa (25-5) is the two-time defending champion, and the Marauders are 3-0 in title games, having also won in 1985.

Hause, a four-year letterman who will start for Mira Mesa, won a pitcher’s version of the triple crown this season, leading the county with a 12-1 record, a 0.62 earned-run average and 120 strikeouts. For good measure, he also batted .402 and led the Marauders with four home runs--this, despite Mira Mesa not having an outfield fence and the fact Coach Mike Prosser uses a designated hitter for all his pitchers during the regular season.

The other team, the one led by Millan, is 20-8-2 and is feeling a bit overlooked.

“We don’t feel we’ve gotten some of the recognition we deserve,” Bonita Vista Coach Bill Getz said. “This is a good ball club. We won the Las Vegas tournament (going 4-0 in the Las Vegas Bishop Gorman Tournament). We finished tied for second in (the Metro Conference), which is one of the toughest leagues in the county, if not the toughest. We beat RBV in the first round. We knocked off Grossmont in the quarterfinals. We beat a very good Mar Vista team in the semifinals.

“The team really didn’t get much mention in the papers for beating Grossmont. There was more information about Grossmont and (Jason) Eskridge losing than us winning.

“I can’t speak for the rest of the county, but nobody on the Bonita Vista baseball team is surprised to be playing for the championship.”

Mira Mesa is not surprised.

Six games into its season, Mira Mesa suffered its first loss. It was March 16 in the Madison Warhawk Tournament. Final score: Bonita Vista 13, Mira Mesa 7.

Bonita Vista’s Rohn Battle (.350 average, four homers, 22 stolen bases) erased the Marauders’ 1-0 lead on the first pitch of the bottom of the first inning, and it was all Barons from there.

“We were pumped up for that game, and we beat ‘em good. But I think the whole team realizes that was a different game,” said Millan, alluding to the fact that Hause did not pitch in that game.

Said Mira Mesa catcher Karl Goins: “They already beat us once this year. We’re certainly not going to take them lightly.

“We know what they can do. I know what Jorge Millan can do.”

In the summer of 1989, Goins, Hause and Mira Mesa third baseman Brian Wilson (.402 average, 26 RBIs) played on an all-star team that toured Japan. There, they met Detroit Tiger slugger Cecil Fielder--then with the Hanshin Tigers--played in front of a huge crowd in Yokohama Stadium and watched their teammate, a short, skinny kid from Bonita, impress everyone with his aggressive style and deceptively potent swing.

It was Millan, who has since “grown” to 5-feet-8 and 150 pounds.

Millan might pitch tonight--though Getz is leaning toward starting Randy Robinson. Both have 9-1 records. If not on the mound, Millan will play third or second base. Regardless, he will bat third.

“Jorge Millan has been the guy we could take to the bank all year,” Getz said. “He’s just a gutsy kid.

“We have been successful because we have been able to play as a team. But if one player has brought us to the championship, it was Jorge.”

Bonita Vista has not been to a championship since 1975. Before last week, the Barons (5-13-1 last year) had not been involved in a postseason since losing to Mt. Carmel, 10-1, in the first round of the 1987 playoffs.

Millan, a four-year starter who batted .400 this season, made sure Bonita Vista would play more than one playoff game this year. He had two hits in the Barons’ 5-4 victory over Rancho Buena Vista in the first round. He pitched a six-hitter Thursday and retired the final 10 batters in a 6-3 victory over top-seeded Grossmont, which had won consecutive 2-A titles before moving to the 3-A this year. He went four for four and pitched three hitless innings Saturday in a 6-4 victory over Mar Vista.

Bonita Vista, which has 12 seniors on its 16-man roster, trailed in two of those games, and scored three runs in the sixth inning to win two of them.

3-A Rosters

Bonita Vista 1 Rohn Battle, lf 2 Jaime Cabral, 2b 5 Jorge Millan, p/3b 6 Mike Daniels, cf/p 7 Joe Morales, rf 9 Scott Field, if 10 Chris Lampert, of 11 Travis Sorge, if 12 Danny Harward, of 13 David Gonzalez, ss 14 Mike Dole, 1b 15 Frank Peralta, 1b 16 Jeff Shinn, if/of 17 Randy Robinson, p 18 John Gonzalez, c 19 Scotty Shields, of Coach: Bill Getz

Mira Mesa 1 Ronnie Cornel, if 2 Danny Sponsel, if/c 5 Scott Stewart, p/of 6 Chris Lilly, lf 7 Tim Fay, c/of 8 Coleman Mullin, cf 9 R. Cunningham, p 10 Bobby Arban, if 11 David Lundberg, ss 13 Michael Pittman, if 14 Daryle Owen, 2b 15 Gabriel Lopez, p/of 16 Curtis Johnson, of 18 Karl Goins, c/if 19 Brendan Hause, p 20 Jason Payne, p/of 22 Rey Mendez, if/of 23 Chris Moeller, rf 25 Brian Wilson, 3b Coach: Mike Prosser