It had been a long road for the Saratoga squad. The locals had opened the tourney with wins over Fremont, Santa Clara No. 2 and Los Altos, but lost to Santa Clara No. 1 to slip into the loser's bracket. They came back with another win over Los Altos to move into the finals, but they had to beat Santa Clara No. 1 twice to take the title.

The Saratoga Colts won the first one 7-4, but they found themselves trailing in the game that would decide the tourney championship. And as that game played out, things didn't look good—for Santa Clara!

Saratoga rallied from behind to pull out a 4-3 victory and win the sectional crown. With the championship, the locals were able to skip the Regional Tournament and advance directly to the West Zone tourney set for July 28 through Aug. 1 at San Jose's PAL Stadium. That winner would move on to the Colt League World Series in Lafayette, Ind., on Aug. 3.

The dream ended for Saratoga at the zone tourney, though, as the locals lost their first two games.

But it was the getting there that was impressive for this group of Saratoga 15- and 16-year-olds.

Santa Clara had the home field advantage at Washington Park, but that didn't seem to both Saratoga in the tournament finals.

Jimmy Kearney started Saratoga on the comeback trail in the deciding game. With his club down 3-0, Kearney ripped a shot off the wall in center field for a triple and later scored to cut the lead to 3-1.

Saratoga took control of the game in the fourth inning. Jeff Roberts lined a single to center to knock in two runs to tie the game 3-3 and Alex Lagemann singled home Roberts with the run that broke the tie.

That was all starter Scott Newberry needed. The Saratoga hurler shut down Santa Clara the rest of the way, hurling a complete game for the victory.

The locals had set up the championship showdown with a 7-4 win over Santa Clara earlier the same day. Grant Simon and Jeff DeBarr singled home two runs apiece to help Saratoga jump out to a 4-0 first-inning lead.

Sam Twombly and Kevin Scezierak did the rest. Twombly tossed five strong innings to get the mound win and Scezierak flipped the final two to get the save in the 7-4 victory.

Saratoga opened the tourney by routing Fremont 13-0 on July 10, then whipped Santa Clara No. 2 a day later 10-3. A 9-5 win over Los Altos that Monday gave Saratoga three wins in as many days.

After a day off, Saratoga suffered an 11-2 loss to Santa Clara on Wednesday. The locals had to come back a day later to beat Los Altos 13-7 to get into the championship round.

In order to win the crown, the Saratoga 'stars had to sweep a Friday double-header from Santa Clara No. 1—and that's just what they did.

Members of the championship Saratoga club were Chris Bruner, Scott Darchuk, DeBarr, Kearney, Al. Lagemann, Augie Lagemann, Newberry, Bo Nielson, Jeff Roberts, Scezierak, Simon, Twombly and Matt Wright. The squad's manager was John Nielson and his coaches were Keith Simon, Bob DeBarr and Steve Newberry.