The Cupertino Courier
Sports
Red Sox knocked out in TOC semifinals
By MIKE BARNHART
After claiming first-round victories during the District 44 Junior Tournament of Champions, both the Sunnyvale Serra Reds and the Cupertino American Red Sox both were ousted in the semifinals on June 24.
Local teams--the Reds, Red Sox and two Cupertino National teams (the Twins and Cardinals)--comprised half of the Junior TOC's eight-team field. After 18 teams completed a regular season of 19 to 21 games, the teams with the best eight records earned spots into the TOC.
The championship game between the Los Altos Giants and the Moreland Black was set for June 27 at Farrell Field in Sunnyvale. The Giants spanked the CA Red Sox, 15-1, in one of the semifinals, while Moreland clipped Serra's Reds, 9-4, in the other.
The Red Sox opened the tourney with a 14-8 decision over the Los Altos Cardinals.
The Serra Reds, who finished second in the regular season with a 14-5 record for manager Jim Chapman, fell behind Moreland 4-0 in the first three innings of their semifinal, before pulling within 4-2 in the fifth on Nick Utley's triple and Devon Ramsour's RBI single.
Moreland pulled away, though, with six runs in the home half of the fifth. Alex Becker's two-run single keyed the rally. Michael Tow was a defensive standout for Moreland, pitching no-hit, one-run ball during the first four innings and making leaping catches at shortstop in the sixth and seventh frames. Teammate Ian Lynch laid down a pair of nifty bunt singles.
Ramsour had two of Serra's six hits and teammate Patrick Crowley added a double.
The Serra champs fared better in the first round when they knocked off the Cupertino National Cardinals, 5-1. Crowley and teammate Craig Taubman both had two-baggers for the Reds, and Ramsour was the winning pitcher. Pitcher Kevin Wilson's double was the biggest of the Cardinals' four hits.
Other team members of the Serra Reds were Devon Schaetzle, James Osorio, Akash Jagannathan, Michael Hauan, Zachary Hargis, Christopher Chung, Eric Chapman and Alexander Chapman.
The CN Cardinals' team members included Wilson, Jason Hodges, Grant Manley, Evan Hirsch, Krish Rangariaajan, Abishek Menon, Kalon Zandbergs, Karan Ram, Vincent Menon, Jarrod Beiser, Ryan Winston and Jason Kearns.
The CN Twins dropped a tough first-round game, 6-5, to the Los Altos Giants. Cody Alfred pitched five strong innings for the Twins, while teammate Hikaru Matarai collected three of the Twins' eight hits.
Other Twins players were Kranti Peddada, Anthony Maldonado, Aditya Ravikumar, Michael Nasmeh, Spencer Lehrman, Harrison Hodder, Kevin Hayes, Christian Fatoohi and Nick Sinzig.
Minor TOC
The Moreland Diamondbacks and the Sunnyvale Southern A's reached the District 44 Minor TOC championship game June 27 at Sunnyvale's Washington Park, but it wasn't easy. Both teams won three straight games last week--and four of those were one-run victories decided in the final inning. In fact, all of the Southern champ's games were settled in that fashion.
The Serra Red Sox and the Cupertino National Braves both gave the A's serious fits before losing to them. Although the Red Sox battered A's pitching for 14 hits in a TOC opener on June 20, they dropped a 6-5 decision.
Clara Takahashi, Ron Yehoshua and Preston Heen all had three hits for the Red Sox.
Their teammates included Harry Crane, Reed Houser, Justin Jiang, Itai Intrater, Alexander Pieb, Robert Poling, Andrew Strotman, Daniel Takahashi and Samuel Willhalm.
Two days later, the CN Braves outhit the A's 14-7, but lost 9-8 in eight innings. Mathew Sanders, Michael Cheadle and Chris Guarino all banged out three hits for the Braves.
The Braves led 4-2 entering the bottom of the sixth inning, thanks to a two-run double by Sanders. Gabe Adzich and Darshan Donthi also belted doubles for the Braves, who enjoyed slim leads entering each of the last three innings. Nathan Gers gave the Braves their final advantage, 8-7 going into the bottom of the eighth, but the A's promptly loaded the bases and won on a two-run single up the middle.
CN was coming off a comeback victory of its own, 6-4 over the Tri-Cities A's. The Braves needed three runs in the top of the sixth to overtake the Tri-Cities champs. The big hit was Adzich's two-run double, his second two-bagger of the game. Adzich and Jackson Ziegler of the Braves and Oscar Mukherjee of the A's all had two hits in the game.
CN's Guarino shut down the A's in the last of the sixth, saving the mound decision for teammate Shiron Drusinsky, who allowed just two runs in three innings of work. Gabriel Legaspi of the A's pitched the whole game and struck out nine Braves.
Rami Dwidar and Justin Chang were other contributors for the victorious Braves.
Bryan Malone paced the Cupertino American Blue Jays with three hits and three runs scored in his team's only game, an 18-8 loss to the Pirates of Santa Clara Westside.
Major TOC
The major division championship teams of Cupertino's four local leagues all were ousted in their first appearances of the 13-team Major TOC.
Behind the pitching of Austin Burrow, the Cupertino National Giants were deadlocked, 1-1, with the Los Altos Braves in a first-round game. After a pitching change in the top of the sixth, the Los Altos squad erupted for 10 runs, six on a pair of three-run home runs, and won 11-1. It was just the third loss for the CN champion in 22 games this season.
Burrow, had two of his team's three hits, one which helped the Giants take a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second. Los Altos evened the score in the fourth, before breaking loose in the sixth.
Other members of the CN Giants were brothers Ajay and Akash Agarwal, Aaron Ho, Jason Huang, Michael Kute, Jake Lee, Joe Lettire, Daniel Lu, Harsha Nakala, Jordan Sheade and Peter Stern.
The Cupertino American Dodgers were shut down, 12-0 by the Marlins of Santa Clara Homestead. The Serra A's and Tri-Cities Giants all ran up against big-time pitching performances against the eventual finalists, the Santa Clara-Briarwood Pirates and the Sunnyvale National Cubs.
Singles by Ross Slaney and Warren Richards were the only hits the A's picked up against Briarwood's pitchers. Other members of the Serra champs were Kevin Barbano, Casey Douglas, Jeffrey Hardy, Joel Kitchen, Pablo Lozano, Cory McGee, Max Sloan, Jordan Spence, Garrett Wong and Damon Wong.
The Tri-Cities Giants picked up just one hit, a single by Dylan Lum, against Tyler Bond of Sunnyvale National. Lum's teammates on the T-C Giants included Maz Dunn, Kevin Robell, Andrew Cousins, Willie Wang, Casey Cabrales, Aren Goldberg, Yuya Yamamoto, Harrison Farnum, Eddie Cisneros, Tommy Gomez and Thomas Coder.
