Barons Get Win; Rain Gets Save

With ominous skies overhead, the players and coaches for Fountain Valley and Taylorsville (Utah) high schools knew it was going to rain during their National Classic first-round matchup Monday in Placentia. They just didn’t know that the rain would bring so much controversy.

Fountain Valley won, 4-3, in a game shortened to five innings because of the rain. The controversy came when Taylorsville’s Chris Mower hit a grand slam with two outs in the top of the sixth inning to give the Warriors an apparent 7-4 lead. The game was then halted before the bottom of the sixth, and, according to the rule book, if a game is called before both teams complete a full inning, the score reverts back to the last completed inning.

Since the Barons (14-3) were leading, 4-3, after five innings, they were declared the winners. It took the umpires about 20 minutes to make their ruling.

“There should be no decision,” Fountain Valley Coach Ron LaRuffa said while waiting for the ruling. “This is high school baseball and the score should revert back to the last inning.”

Taylorsville Coach Steve Cramblitt said the issue could have been resolved earlier.

“I told the umpires that we should suspend the game with two out in the fifth inning and resume it tomorrow,” he said. “We didn’t come all this way [for this].”

Before the rain started, Fountain Valley scored four times in the fourth for a 4-0 lead. Seb Gonzales and John Clark hit run-scoring singles and third baseman Casey Janssen hit a home run to account for three of the runs, with the fourth coming on an error.

Josh Bartusick, starting his first game for the Barons, struck out eight in the first four innings and held Taylorsville scoreless until the fifth. That’s when it began to rain harder, and Bartusick began to struggle.

He walked two and gave up two run-scoring hits, and another run scored on a fielder’s choice before Bartusick (1-0) gave way to reliever Brent Erickson with two out. Erickson got Matt Shepherd to ground out to earn his second save.

“It was too wet out there,” Bartusick said. “The balls were waterlogged and the mound was in bad shape. It was horrible.”

Tournament director Iran Novick said the decision was out of his hands.

“This game is not suspended, it’s a final,” he said. “These are the rules. I would have liked to have changed that, but I couldn’t.”

The Barons will play Wednesday against the winner of today’s 3:30 p.m. game between Cooper City (Fla.) and Riverside Poly.