Van Nuys-Notre Dame Leads Suspended Game

So far in the District 20 American Legion playoffs, nobody had been able to stop Van Nuys-Notre Dame and Reseda-Cleveland. Going into their third-round game Friday at Birmingham High, they both had swept their first two games and were the tournament’s only undefeated teams.

But then Mother Nature stepped to the fore and stopped both in their tracks at Birmingham High’s lightless Ramirez Field.

With Van Nuys-Notre Dame leading, 6-5, and Reseda-Cleveland set to bat in the bottom of the eighth inning, home plate umpire and crew chief Tommy Thompson called the game because of darkness.

The game will be resumed in the bottom of eighth at 9 this morning at Birmingham. The winner advances to the District 20 championship round Sunday at 11 a.m. and is guaranteed a berth in the Area 6 playoffs at Moorpark College from Aug. 6-9.

The loser of the suspended game will meet the winner of the losers’ bracket game between Granada Hills-Glendale at 3 p.m. today. That winner will advance to the championship round Sunday and is guaranteed a berth in the Area 6 playoffs. Granada Hills and Glendale play at Birmingham at 11 a.m. today.

The decision to suspend the game was met with mixed results.

Take the case of Reseda-Cleveland center fielder David Lerma. His two errors in the top of the eighth inning enabled Van Nuys-Notre Dame to score twice and turn a 5-4 deficit into a 6-5 lead.

“Most likely I wouldn’t have made the errors if it was light out,” Lerma said, complaining of poor visibility. “I don’t make dumb errors.

“I’m glad the game was suspended.”

Lerma’s troubles began when Jeff Antoon led off the Van Nuys-Notre Dame eighth inning with a single. The ball got by Lerma in the outfield and Antoon reached third base on the play.

The next batter, Chris Lohman, hit a fly to deep center. It appeared that it was hit deep enough for a sacrifice fly, but Lerma, who was in position to make the catch, dropped the ball.

“Once a ball gets to a certain height out there you can’t see it without lights,” Lerma said. “You can see the ball coming, but once it goes up there, you can’t see it until it’s 10 feet away from you.”

Lohman reached third on the error, Antoon scoring the tying run. Bobby Hughes drove in Lohman with what stands to be the winning run with a sacrifice fly to left. Both coaches agreed that it was best to stop the game and avoid injury, but one had his doubts.

“I don’t want any of these guys to get injured out here because of the darkness,” Van Nuys-Notre Dame Coach Jody Breeden said. “But I sure hate to stop the game right there and lose all of that momentum we had.”

Said Reseda-Cleveland Coach Marty Siegel: “I would have been for stopping the game even if we had the lead.”

Van Nuys-Notre Dame gave starting pitcher Mike Peterson (3-2) a 2-0 lead in the first inning. With the bases loaded and nobody out, Antoon hit a grounder to third. Reseda-Cleveland third baseman Lance Mandel made an errant throw to home, allowing two Van Nuys-Notre Dame runners to score.

Reseda-Cleveland came back with a run in its half of the first on Jim Doushgounian’s run-scoring single. Van Nuys-Notre Dame increased its lead to 4-1 in the fourth inning against Reseda-Cleveland starting pitcher Tony Holiday on an RBI single by Kevin Milligan and a sacrifice fly by Tony Ljubetic.

Reseda-Cleveland scored a run in the fourth on Chris Burch’s RBI single, then took the lead with three runs in the fifth. Two of the three runs were unearned.

With Doushgounian on first and J.R. Smith on second, Van Nuys-Notre Dame right fielder Greg Haptor allowed Chris Johnson’s single to go by him for an error. Smith and Doushgounian scored on the play, then Johnson scored the go-ahead run when Van Nuys-Notre Dame first baseman Kurt Keitzman’s relay throw to home was wild.

That set the stage for the umpires’ decision.

“I just wish we would have kept on playing,” Hughes said. “Winning the game is more important than the chance of getting injured.”