The Cupertino Courier
Sports
American goes 3-2 in all-star play
By MIKE BARNHART
It happens every year. Teams lose games during the first week of District 44 baseball all-star competition and then play Little League Survivor in week two, trying to stave off a second loss and elimination from the 14-team field.
Such was the case this season for the major division all-stars in the Cupertino American Little League. After beating Sunnyvale Southern 7-3, American lost to Santa Clara Westside in the second round and started the gauntlet the next day. Strong pitching by Kevin Dziuba and nearly perfect mound work by Evan Short helped American survive through games against Sunnyvale Metro and Sunnyvale National. But, in its fifth game in seven days, American lost 3-1 to Santa Clara Homestead.
It was a fun ride for American's major all-stars, who finished among the final six teams with a 3-2 record. Short's four-hit, eight-strikeout pitching effort and Andrew Lien's home run helped get the party started against Southern on July 5, but catcher Noah Calhoun's two-run single was not enough offense for American to get past Westside.
American fell behind in its consolation game with Metro, but Gabe Knittle's two-run single and Jared Wong's solo homer gave American a 3-1 lead after four innings. Dziuba ripped a lead-off triple in the fifth--his second hit of the game--and scored an insurance run on a single by Calhoun. Dziuba pitched the distance, scattering eight hits and getting timely outs to strand nine Metro runners.
Short's one-hit, 14-strikeout effort during a 4-0 shutout of National was perhaps the most dominant performance of the entire tournament. Short struck out the side in the first and fifth innings and whiffed two batters in each of the four other innings. Tako Takahashi and Calhoun both had run-scoring doubles for American.
In other major action, Tri-Cities recovered from a 9-0 shutout to eventual champion Santa Clara Briarwood by beating Mountain View, 9-7. Casey Cabrales led the way Mountain View with two hits and pitched well in relief of Willie Wang. Cabrales, Sergio Licardie and Pano Athans had doubles in the win.
Cupertino National and Serra both went 0-2 in the tourney. National's Aaron Ho had three hits in a 13-3 loss to Homestead and a home run in a 10-9 loss to Metro. Ho, Austin Burrow, Jason Huang and Collin Haworth all had two hits against Metro. Serra fell 10-4 to Briarwood and 5-2 to Sunnyvale National.
10-11 all-stars
Cupertino American and Cupertino National survived long enough in the 10-11 all-star tourney to notch three wins apiece and share fifth place.
Facing elimination after a 3-1 loss to National, American defeated Briarwood 12-11 in seven innings, Mountain View 6-3 and Serra 8-4. The season ended with an 8-5 defeat to Los Altos.
After the National all-stars' win over American, they lost 13-1 to Los Altos and dropped into the consolation bracket. National then topped Metro 3-2 and Westside 6-3, before getting knocked out of contention by Homestead 7-3.
American scored four times in the last of the seventh to beat Briarwood and start its three-game win streak. Timmy Wallis raced home with the winning run on a passed ball, after Gabe Wagner-Rosales' two-run double and Kevin Tu's RBI single.
A day earlier, National's Peter Stern pitched a 4-hitter against American. Stern and Harsha Nukala had two hits apiece for the winners, while American's Allen Yu had three.
The rosters and records of the local 10-11 teams follow:
Cupertino American (3-2)--Austin Brady, Hsiang Cheng, Naveed Chowdhury, Matt Crowley, Dustin DeFrank, Patrick Kim, Ruane Darragh, Michael Schrey, Kevin Tu, Marshall Varney, Gabe Wagner-Rosales, Timothy Wallis, Ethan Wendler and Allen Yu;
Cupertino National (3-2)--Ryo Matarai, Yoshito Kamada, Ralph Donigan, Jacob Maldonado, Ahmit Dhingra, Peter Stern, Harsha Nukala, Jordan Sheade, Nathan Schadle, Bryan Zhao, Thanawat Limpanarom, Gabriel Vegas and Spencer Rodrigues;
Serra (2-2)--Michael Caballero, Jordan Chapman, Curtis Currier, Jeffrey Hardy, David Item, Andrew James, Lawson Joos, Pablo Lozano, Todd Matsuura, Cory McGee, Adam Hayes Simkin, Ross Slaney and Colton Wisecarver;
Tri-Cities (0-2)--Alay Parikh, Gabriel Legaspi, Iyal Suresh, Kelvin Wang, Tatsuya Tsukahara, Sahil Bhargava, Sunny Jeong, Kavin Mistry, Ziad Ahmed, Shubham Upadhyay, Sean Howard-Pitney and David Nie.
9-10 all-stars
Cupertino National scored a pair of wins in the 9-10 all-star tourney, 9-7 over Homestead and 8-7 against Cupertino American. Drew Granzella, who doubled twice and scored the decisive run in National's victory over American, was the winning pitcher against Homestead.
Rosters and records of the local 9-10 teams follow: Cupertino American (0-2)--Aaron Aquino, Andrew Bae, A.J. Bonelli, Connor Breuckman, Greyson Contag, Eric Day, Paul Johnson, Jason Larsh, Michael Lin, Bryan Malone, Yuki Nishimura, Zachary Owens, Chase Palumbo and Caity Prada;
Cupertino National (2-2)--Daniel Lu, Luke Thompson, Drew Granzella, Patrick Xie, Kyle Ong, Steven Karl, Matthew Enright, Brian Kearns, Mathias McAfee, Ian Young, Ryan Manley, Daniel McGarry, Brian Nordby and Conor Murray;
Serra (0-2)--David Almas, Justin Cena, Bryce Clark, Paige Crowley, Casey Douglas, Bryan Erickson, Isaac Hirata, Joel Kitchen, Justin Lyon, Justin Shayesteh, Justin Shiah, Drew Strotman and Michael Todd;
Tri-Cities (0-2)--Geoffrey Lang, Kevin Herhusky, Brent Knaack, Vinay Rao, Billy Schmidt, Benjamin Cousins, Andrew Cousins, Max Dunn, Harrison Farnum, Robert Hou, Tyler LaSpina and Matthew Workman.
