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Fremont secures baseball crown
'Birds not perfect, but they're champs
By Dick Sparrer
It won't be a perfect league season.
But you won't catch many of the Fremont baseball players complaining too loudly.
Sure, the Firebirds would have liked to have wrapped up the championship with an unblemished record in the El Camino Division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League.
But Los Altos knocked off Fremont 15-5 last week to stick the Firebirds with their only loss so far in league play.
So the 'Birds will win the championship this spring with a record that isn't perfect. And guess what? They won't lose one wink of sleep over it.
They can't--they've got to rest up for their trip to the Central Coast Section playoffs.
Fremont will enter the playoffs as the El Camino champ, regardless of the outcome of any games this week. Teams in the division will wrap up the regular season this week, but the Firebirds have already clinched the championship.
They did it with wins over Palo Alto and Mountain View that they sandwiched around the loss to Los Altos.
The Eagles kept themselves mathematically alive with wins over Homestead and Fremont last week. But Fremont put the clincher on the crown on Saturday with the 5-1 win over the Spartans.
Scott Brown and Troy Tulowitzski combined to toss a five-hitter in the win over Mountain View. Brown picked up the win, evening his mound record at 3-3, and Tulowitzski came on in relief to pick up the save.
Pat Burgess, Kyle Severns and Brett Bonetti ripped two hits each and Tulowitzski blasted a triple to lead an 11-hit attack for Fremont in the win. Brandon Klein ripped a double.
Fremont scored in the second to take a 1-0 lead and made it 2-0 in the fourth. The Spartans scored in the sixth to cut the lead to 2-1, but Fremont rallied for three in the bottom of the sixth to clinch the win.
The Firebirds, 18-9 for the year, had lost 15-5 to Los Altos a game earlier. The Eagles improved to 12-4 with the win and Fremont slipped to 14-1. The Firebirds would have had to lose all three of their remaining games to slip into a first-place tie, but they took care of business right away with the win over Mountain View.
Burgess cracked a three-run home run in the first, his second homer in as many weeks, to stake Fremont to an early 3-0 lead. But Los Altos unloaded for 12 runs in the bottom of the inning and cruised from there to the victory.
Fremont was coming off of a lopsided 11-4 win over Palo Alto. Tulowitzski scattered eight hits to pick up the mound win, pushing his record to 8-0, and he also homered and singled to drive in three runs for the Firebirds.
Severns singled and doubled to plate a couple of runs in the win and Nick Pullano doubled home three.
Klein singled and doubled for Fremont, Ron Cerda had two hits and Burgess knocked in two runs.
In other local action, Homestead dropped the 22-9 decision to Los Altos to slip to 5-8 in the division.
Like they did against Fremont, the Eagles came up with a big rally in the first and coasted from there to the win.
The Eagles opened up with eight runs in the top of the first to take an early lead, but Homestead fought back. Down 11-1 heading into the last of the third, the Mustangs unloaded for seven runs, cutting the lead to 11-8. But Los Altos picked up six in the fourth and five more in the fifth to end the game in five innings.
Senior slugger Gary Mullins singled and doubled to lead the Mustangs at the plate. Robbie Hoffman added two hits for Homestead and Brian Maihack and Bryan Beres each doubled.
Homestead will close out the season this week when the Mustangs host Lynbrook on May 8 and visit Mountain View on May 10 in a couple of 3:30 p.m. games.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
