Nothin’ like a little controversy heading into the final day of a tournament.
The Santa Barbara Foresters and rival Santa Maria Packers battled to a 5-5 tie through nine full innings Saturday night before darkness ended the contest. A berth in the Rawlings California Cup Tournament championship game was on the line.
Tournament rules say that a game lasting over three hours is to be stopped, with the victor being the team with the most hits at that point. The Packers had 13 hits, while the Foresters had 11.
But wait… The game didn’t last three hours before darkness set in, so it was decided that the 10th inning would be played on Sunday morning at 10 a.m.
Or did it last three hours?
Santa Maria came back afterwards and argued with Foresters manager Bill Pintard, saying that their clock showed that the game did indeed go over the time limit. That meant that the Foresters would take the loss and have to play the Conejo Oaks at 11 a.m. Sunday. The winner of that game would play the Packers at 2 p.m. for the title.
Pintard’s response?
“Fine — we’ll see you at two o’clock.”
Before the controversy, it was a great ballgame between the two California Collegiate League squads.
The Foresters (22-8) scored two early runs in the first inning on three hits and a pair of errors by the Packers, but Santa Maria (15-15-1) responded with a three-run homer to right field by Brice Cutspec in the top of third inning — the first earned runs given up all summer by Santa Barbara ace A.J. Griffin, who was pitching in his 19th inning of the season at the time. The University of San Diego star was charged for three runs on seven hits with seven strikeouts and three walks in five innings of work.
Santa Maria starter Matt Phillips wasn’t dominant but was certainly a horse, going eight full innings, giving up five runs on 10 hits.
Brandon Loy singled home Ryan Hege to tie the game at 3-3 in the fourth, but the deadlock would be broken up in the seventh when Ryan Delgado hit a two-run homer off of Matt Evers to make it 5-3 in favor of the visitors. With darkness looming in the bottom of the eighth inning, Matt Valaika led off with a single and made it to second when James Meador drew a one-out walk. A gutsy double-steal put both runners in scoring position, and Ryan Hege knocked in Valaika with a single. Meador would then score on a sacrifice fly by Loy.
The Foresters had speedy Tim Maitland at second in the bottom of the ninth but couldn’t get him home for the win.
Pintard’s teams have previously had a longstanding rivalry with the Santa Maria Indians, but that team folded in the offseason and the Packers were born.
“It was a great game, and now the Santa Barbara – Santa Maria rivalry is really alive again,” he said.
The Foresters take on the Oaks at 11 a.m. at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium. Due to the loss, Santa Barbara will have to play a doubleheader against the Packers and win both games to take the tournament crown.
