NBL BASEBALL TOURNAMENT: Casa Grande drops title game to Cardinal Newman

Casa Grande dropped its North Bay League Tournament championship game to Cardinal Newman Friday night on the Santa Rosa Junior College diamond.

A muffed fly ball to center field allowed the only runs to score in a 2-0 Cardinal victory in the third meeting of the season between the two Redwood Empire powerhouse teams. Ironically, Casa Grande won the two NBL regular-season games between the rivals in a large part because of Cardinal Newman miscues.

Although the win gave Cardinal Newman reason to celebrate, the loss did little to hurt the Gauchos, who finished as the NBL champions with a 13-1 record, were 20-6 overall and seeded No.4 with a first-round home game in the North Coast Section Division 2 playoffs.

Cardinal Newman finished the regular season, plus the two NBL playoff games, with a 21-5 record after ending league play with an 11-3 mark. Inexplicably, the Cardinals were seeded No. 2 in the NCS playoffs with Redwood (23-3) the top seed.

Friday’s NBL Tournament title game was a well-played pitching match between Newman’s Cal Clamar and Casa Grande’s Eric Parnow. Clamar shut the Gauchos down on just four hits, walking two and striking out four. Parnow gave up three hits in five innings, walking two and striking out five. Neither run off the senior left-hander was earned.

In a game that was decided by an error, both teams make spectacular defensive plays.

Cardinal Newman right fielder Luc DeLorenzo twice robbed Casa batters.

In the first inning, he raced across the foul line and slid into a net fence to grab a slicing foul hit by Casa’s Spencer Torkelson. In the fourth, he made a sliding snare of a fair blast struck by the Gauchos’ Casey Longaker to save a run.

Cardinal center fielder Alex Roeser made a great grab of his own to take a hit away from Max Cerini in the third inning.

In the sixth inning, the Cardinal infield snuffed out a potential Gaucho rally with a nifty 6-4-3 double play with two men on and one man out.

Casa Grande had its own web gems.

In the seventh inning, Chris Joaquim unleashed a cannon throw after grabbing a fly in medium-deep right field to throw out the Cardinals’ Travis Steever trying to score after the catch. Gaucho catcher Longaker blocked the plate to prevent the run from scoring.

The next batter, Kyle Scott, belted a drive into center field that would have been a certain run-scoring hit had not Parnow, who transfered to the outfield after leaving the mound, not made a 10.0-scoring dive and catch after a long run.

The game was decided in the top of the third inning. The Cardinals had two runners on base, the result of two-thirds of the hits allowed by Parnow, but the Gauchos had two out, the result of two Parnow strikeouts.

Colin Imm hit a routine-looking fly to shallow center, but nothing is routine in baseball. The ball hit the heel of the outfielder’s glove and dropped disastrously to the artificial turf as the game’s only runs scored.

Clamar allowed the Gauchos nothing, and Nick Bostow and Spencer Torkelson each pitched a scoreless inning in relief of Parnow for Casa.