'I failed my kids': Queen Creek baseball coach Mikel Moreno wants AIA to punish him, not team
A day after the Arizona Interscholastic Association made Queen Creek forfeit its 2-1 6A playoff baseball win over Hamilton for use of an illegal pitcher, Queen Creek coach Mikel Moreno pleaded his case.
To no avail.
He said he spent 40 minutes on the phone Thursday with AIA Assistant Executive Director Joe Paddock, who made the decision Wednesday to have Queen Creek forfeit the game because reliever Sebastian Tomerlin had exceeded the 60 pitches Saturday night in a loss to Scottsdale Chaparral.
Tomerlin saved the game against Hamilton, a 2-1 victory Tuesday night that would have knocked out the Huskies from the 16-team, double-elimination tournament and sent Queen Creek into Friday's 4 p.m. semifinal against Chaparral, by getting the last three outs, leaving Hamilton stranded with runners on second and third.
Instead, Hamilton plays Chaparral at 4 p.m. at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa.
According to the AIA rules that were put into place in 2016, if a pitcher exceeds 60 pitches in a game, he has to have three days rest in order to pitch again.
Moreno said he entered 55 pitches against Chaparral for Tomerlin on the AIA website. That would have allowed Tomerlin to come back on two days' rest. Chaparral's GameChanger had Tomerlin for 64 pitches.
According to Paddock, the AIA deferred to Chaparral's count because it used GameChanger, which is one of the two official mechanisms to input pitch counts that the AIA accepts. The other is an AIA pitch-count document.
Paddock said the AIA couldn't verify the accuracy of the pitch count by Queen Creek, the designated home team with its higher seed at No. 5.
Moreno had a reserve player on the bench keep track of the pitches on a sheet of paper.
"I don't know anybody who used the AIA pitch sheet," Moreno said Friday m. "They use the scorebook or a plain piece of paper to tally it, or GameChanger.
"Additionally, at the end of each game, that sheet they said that was required to turn in, I was supposed to take that sheet and meet at home plate with the opposing coach and he signs my sheet and I sign their sheet, and turn it in to the athletic director.
"We haven't done that in seven years. There's not one coach we played against this year that we did that."
Moreno said he had a conference call with the district athletic director, the principal and Paddock on Wednesday.
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Messages from The Arizona Republic were left Friday morning with Queen Creek Principal Julie Oster and Queen Creek Union High School District Athletic Director Cory Nenaber.
"I started off the conversation by saying, 'Sir, this is human error on my part, and I'm taking full responsibility for our less-than-subpar stat-taking formula,' " Moreno said. "I said there are extenuating circumstances for this one game.
"I should have adapted and done something better and we didn't. For that, I apologize. I said, 'If we were in a courtroom, I would tell you, I'm throwing myself at the court's mercy. Punish me. Don't punish the boys. We do this for the kids. We do this to serve kids.'
"I said, 'Me, I was irresponsible. I failed my kids.' I said the powers that be are not serving kids right. I don't understand when you're talking about a four-pitch discrepancy."
Paddock said that there is no appeals process in place but welcomed the call.
"We reviewed the process that was used and why the decision was reached as it was," Paddock said Friday morning. "Unfortunately, as I told him, our membership bylaws don't provide for a coach to simply receive a consequence. It's almost always the coach who makes the decision to use an ineligible player. And so it comes back to that ineligible player issue. And the consequence goes back to the team."
Paddock also refuted comments on social media that Chaparral's GameChanger was inaccurate.
"We confirmed with Chaparral, with their administration, with their coach, that what they have is accurate and they have no reason to question it wasn't accurate," Paddock said.
Moreno said he likens the punishment to being ticketed for driving 59 miles per hour in a 55-mile-per-hour zone.
Paddock said Wednesday that the information on Tomerlin's pitch count came from "a couple of other sources," and not Hamilton.
"I did eventually talk to them, but things were already blowing up by that time," Paddock said. "Stuff was all over social media. We did get a couple of calls."
Because he doesn't use GameChanger, Moreno said he was told by Nenaber to enter the pitch count for the Chaparral game on Wednesday morning, after it came to light that Tomerlin might have exceeded the pitch-count limit in order to pitch Tuesday.
"I said OK," Moreno said. "I knew that if I forged the sheet and used the sheet that nobody uses and turned it in with that pitch count, my boys would be playing today.
"I already admitted our bookkeeping is less than subpar. 'But you're informing me that there's no maliciousness and no nefarious intent on our part. You're going to go with the visitor.' He said yes.
"I don't want you to reward incompetency on my part. I take full responsibility. But you're punishing boys for an honest mistake.' "
Moreno said his players are handling the forfeiture well and already were in the weight room Thursday to get ready for summer baseball.
To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert at richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602-316-8827. Follow him on Twitter @azc_obert.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Queen Creek coach Mikel Moreno wants AIA to punish him, not players
