Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Runners left on base Calallen's undoing this time

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Saturday, June 12, 1999

Runners left on base Calallen's undoing this time

By george Vondracek
Caller-Times

AUSTIN - Nothing was likely to match the volume of the roaring baseball fans of Andrews High School after their Mustangs had rallied for the second straight day, this time in the Class 4A state championship game.
   Nothing, that is, except the deafening silence that washed over the stunned Calallen faithful that were part of the 5,443 people on hand Friday afternoon at Disch-Falk Field.
   For the second straight year, the top-ranked Wildcats were defeated in the 4A title game, this time in excruciating fashion. Third-ranked Andrews scored a run with no outs in the bottom of the eighth inning for a 4-3 victory and its first state title.
   "This probably hurts the most. I mean they all hurt," said Calallen coach Steve Chapman, whose Wildcats lost to Dallas Highland Park, 5-2, last year's finale. "But I've been doing baseball camps with these kids since they were 6, 7 years old. They all hurt 'cause they're my kids."
   It was the fifth time Calallen played for a state championship and came up short.
   The loss came despite a superb seven-plus innings of work by senior Justin Rougeau, who was called upon following the elbow injury to No. 2 starter Thomas Fallon. The tiring Rougeau, who walked Shaud Williams to open the eighth, was relieved by Calallen ace Shane Menn. Williams then stole his 48th base of the season on a 1-1 count to Geraldo Bueno.
   Three pitches later, Bueno smacked a curveball into left field to drive in the fleet Williams with the winning run for the 34-3 Mustangs. It made a winner out of Chris Trevino (14-1), an 11th-round pick by Atlanta in last week's major league draft who also won Thursday's game against Brenham.
   All of which left Calallen's fans stunned, its players grasping for words to describe what had happened and wondering aloud if the best team was going home with the more expensive hardware.
   "No. You can't find it anywhere," senior center fielder Floyd Spivey said, shaking his head. "It doesn't exist."
   "I think we played just as good today as we did (Thursday)," senior shortstop Heath Jauer said, referring to the 5-1 semifinal victory over Waxahachie. "Sometimes, that's how it goes. The guys that win aren't always the best team."
   Sparse hitting
   Imitation, however, is the greatest form of flattery. Following Calallen's lead in Thursday's win, Andrews made the most of the five hits allowed by Rougeau. The biggest belonged to Mike Hudgens, who launched a three-run home run off Rougeau in the third inning. Hudgens drove in the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning in the Mustangs' 4-3 win over Brenham in Thursday's other semifinal.
   "It hurts to lose, especially that close," said Rougeau, who threw 100 pitches, walking only two and striking out five.
   Calallen (37-5) made it to the championship game by utilizing only seven hits against Waxahachie. Against Andrews, the Wildcats had six hits. But, in what has become an unwelcome trend for Calallen in Austin, stranded runners were its undoing. The Wildcats left seven on base, including the first when they left the bases loaded against Andrews' left-hander P.J. Lewis.
   In four of Calallen's five state tournament appearances, stranded runners were major factors in the losses.
   "That was key right there," Chapman said. "We left a whole lot of runners on and didn't get the hit. There were times we got some hits like we did in the past, but we just didn't get it today."
   Scratching back
   Still, Calallen battled back from the 3-0 deficit, which was exactly what Andrews coach Joe Ray Halsey didn't want to see.
   "They're both excellent teams and I certainly wouldn't want to play them again," Halsey said. "What's the line from the 'Rocky' movie? 'I don't want no rematch because there ain't gonna be one?' That's exactly how I feel."
   The Wildcats bounced back with two runs in the fourth on three hits. Catcher Clint Miller's infield RBI single that drilled Mustangs third baseman Joe Sanchez in the throat brought in Edward Armstrong, who singled to open the inning. One batter later, Spivey drove in Rougeau, who had doubled, with a sacrifice fly to short left field.
   Calallen tied the game in the fifth when Fallon doubled to right. He was pulling up until he finally noticed that Adrian De La Cruz had misplayed the ball and continued to third. Menn then smacked a grounder to Sanchez, who booted the ball and then threw it away, allowing the Wildcats to tie the game at 3.
   "We knew it was no big deal at the time,'' Calallen senior second baseman James Garner said of Hudgens' homer. "We just picked it up and scored some runs and tied the game. We did all we could do."
   Mistake hitter
   Rougeau certainly did. The pitch to Hudgens for the three-run homer was one of the few mistakes he made. He was backed by flawless defense. Jauer and Garner, the latter still playing with his painful lower back, turned their second double play of the tournament and Miller threw out Hubert Rodriguez trying to steal in the fifth.
   But the missed opportunities early eventually sank the Wildcats in their fifth state tournament. Four of their five losses in Austin have been by a single run. Trevino, who came on in relief in the seventh, retired all six Wildcats he faced, setting the stage for Andrews' eighth inning.
   "Like I said, we had some opportunities to score runs," Chapman said. "We just didn't do it."
   George Vondracek can be reached at 886-3731, via e-mail at vondracek@caller.com or on the internet at caller.com.

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