Notre Dame Baffles Alemany, 11-5 : High school baseball: Leveque, Igou combine to defeat Indians for second time in three days.

The puzzle is missing a piece, but somehow, Notre Dame High is making it all fit.

The missing piece is left-hander Chris Garza, who hasn’t pitched in two weeks because of a sore shoulder. So Chris Leveque and Rich Igou have been doing their version of tag-team pitching.

On two days’ rest, Igou (3-1) threw 116 pitches in five innings against Alemany and the host Knights won a Mission League game, 11-5, Saturday. Igou threw about 40 pitches over the last two innings of Leveque’s victory against the Indians on Wednesday.

Leveque, who threw 121 pitches in five innings Wednesday, returned the favor by pitching the seventh for Igou on Saturday.

Garza is still a week to 10 days from pitching again, Coach Tom Dill said. How long can the Knights keep this up?

“As long as we keep playing,” said catcher Dave Supple, “but we’ve got to keep hitting.”

Notre Dame (14-4, 6-2 in league play) scored 21 runs and had 23 hits in the sweep of Alemany (12-8, 6-2). The two biggest hits Saturday were a grand slam by Supple in the third and a three-run home run by Glen Carson in the fifth. Supple’s grand slam, which erased a 3-0 deficit, was the second for the senior catcher against Alemany’s Mike Corr in two years.

“I haven’t hit that many home runs, but most of them seem to be against him,” said Supple, who has three homers against Corr in his career.

The loss, however, went to Chris Tashima (3-1), who relieved Corr in the fourth with Alemany ahead, 5-4. Notre Dame took the lead by scoring on a wild pitch and on an errant throw on an attempted force at the plate. Notre Dame put the game away in the fifth with five runs--three on Carson’s second home run of the year. Four of the runs were unearned because of a dropped infield popup.

“I’m very disappointed and embarrassed with the way we played today,” said Alemany Coach Jim Ozella, whose team walked nine batters and made three errors. “We get some runs and then we walk people. (Our pitchers) have just got to throw strikes and give us a chance to make some plays.”

The sweep pulls Notre Dame into a second-place tie with Alemany, two games behind Crespi. Alemany has two games remaining against Crespi, and Notre Dame is finished with both teams.

“We could definitely use some help,” Dill said. “But right now we are looking toward the playoffs. We can’t let any games slip away.”