RCH baseball no loser

If it’s any consolation – and really, it should be -- Rome Catholic High School’s baseball team wasn’t a loser in the Class D state final at Binghamton University.

Let the record show that Chapel Field Christian School and Lions lefty Travis Renwick won 2-0, and leave it at that.

As state championship games go, this was about as good as it gets, and Rome Catholic High pitcher Joe Melioris Jr. and the Redwings had a lot to do with that.

Melioris pitched a two-hitter, struck out 10 and did not walk a batter and the Redwings – second baseman Eli Hedrington, center fielder Gino Campanaro, and first baseman Mike Henderson in particular – played well behind him.

It just so happened that one of those 10 strikeouts came on a 3-2 wild pitch, and  that one of those hits was a mistake by the batter, not by Melioris, a swinging bunt down the third-base line that was followed by an opposite-field double that scored the only two runs of the game.

Unfortunately, that’s baseball, an at times frustrating game of “ifs” and “buts” whose outcome sometimes rages out of your control.

Unfortunately for the Redwings and their fans, that’s what kept RCH claiming its first state title. That, and the fact that unbeaten lefty Renwick was just as masterful, finishing with a three-hitter, eight strikeouts, and no walks.

No, the Redwings didn’t win. But anybody who saw that state championship game will tell you they didn’t lose it, either. Let the record show that Chapel Field’s Lions won 2-0, and that RCH made them earn it.