By DICK SPARRER
It didn't look good for the Cupertino American Little League junior division all-stars in the first five innings of the District 44 championship game.
But after five innings? It looked great!
Cupertino rallied for five runs in the sixth to overcome a 3-1 deficit and pull out a 6-3 victory over Los Altos Hills Little League to win the district championship.
Eric Barnes cleared the bases with a three-run single in the last of the sixth to spark the five-run rally and lead Cupertino to the victory.
Cupertino had lost 8-7 to Los Altos a game earlier, but battled back for the 6-3 win in the title game.
The American crew opened the tournament with a 10-2 win over Tri-Cities and crushed Sunnyvale national 19-6 to advance in the winner's bracket. A 5-3 win over Cupertino National helped Cupertino American move into the tournament finals, and they had to lose twice to surrender the crown.
They lost once, but not twice, and won the district championship.
Members of the local Little League junior division (13 year olds) all-star teams included:
Sunnyvale National
Francisco Medina, Eric Paterson, Sammie Lamar Baker, Michael Beasley, Victor Lopez, Juan Hernandez, Nicolas Pullano, Christopher Mendel, Daniel Buell, Luke Estrella, Ronald Cerda, Isreal Trujillo and Ryan Kiefer. The manager was Juan Hernandez, and his coach was Paco Rivera.
Sunnyvale Southern
Donovan Kelley, Bobby McGee, Christopher Kidd, Corey Edgar, Gary Mullins, Jason Campos, Matthew Whiteman, Michael Cannon, Paul Wellersdick, Carlos Leiva, Shawn Watson, Christopher Sequin, Matthew Caldwell and Michael Biermann. The manager was Jeff Mullins and his coaches were Mark Kidd and Nathan Smith.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, August 7, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.