The Sunnyvale Sun

Sports

Pitching key to victory for National Cubs

By MIKE BARNHART

Throughout this Little League baseball season, the Sunnyvale National Cubs rode the reliable pitching arms of Tyler Bond and Chet Radish to victory. In fact, heading into the District 44 Major Tournament of Champions, the Cubs had won 18 of 21 games, mainly due to the talented throwing tandem.

"They were the main pitchers, each throwing multiple complete games over the season," reported Bill Nowlin, one of four coaches that help Cubs manager Ernie Cabral guide the Cubs this spring. "Bond pitched a no-hitter and then Radish pitched a 1-hitter the next game."

The same thing has happened in the TOC. There were no no-hitters, but complete games by Bond and Radish made Giant killers out of the Cubs three times last week, leading the Sunnyvale National kingpin into the championship game.

Bond 1-hit the Tri-Cities Giants in a 9-0 tourney opener, then Radish tossed a 4-hitter in a 12-2 win over the Metro Giants. Finally, in a tough semifinal match-up against Santa Clara Westside's Giants on June 23, Bond withstood back-to-back solo home runs in the first inning and pitched the distance in a 6-5 triumph.

The Cubs were hoping for similar pitching prowess heading into the major title game against the Santa Clara-Briarwood Pirates on June 26 at Cupertino's Kennedy Middle School.

To get past Westside, the Cubs parlayed a three-run home run in the third inning by catcher Shane Bond, Tyler's brother, and a two-run single in the fifth by Ridge Fernandez into a 6-3 lead heading into the sixth.

The Giants made it a one-run game and had runners at second and third with two outs, but T. Bond was able to whiff his eighth Giant of the game. Fernandez, T. Bond and Adam Verbrugge paced the Cubs' offense with two hits each.

Two days earlier, while Radish handled the mound chores (nine strikeouts, two walks) against the Metro Giants, T. Bond supported him with three hits and five runs-batted-in. One of the hits, a three-run homer, highlighted a six-run fifth inning that put the game out of reach. Logan Nowlin and Verbrugge both rapped two hits and scored two runs and Nick Aragon scored three runs for the Cubs.

In his 1-hit shutout against Tri-Cities, T. Bond helped himself with three hits and two runs scored. Radish (three RBIs) and Jake Collins (two hits, two runs) paced a 12-hit offense, and S. Bond and A.J. Perez also had singles.

Metro dumps Campbell

Prior to running into the Cubs' pitching machine, Metro's Giants received a complete-game mound outing from Brandon Farrell (4-hitter, nine strikeouts) during a 5-3 win over Campbell champion Moose Lodge. Mike Bourey, Sean Mulcahy and Animesh Agrawal all had two hits and drove in key runs for the Giants, who finished behind the A's in the regular season, but earned the league's TOC bid by taking four of five games in the Metro tournament.

Other Metro Giants were Kevin Chen, Bryce Farrell, Tyler Hawkinson, Robbie Lee, Jason McCrorie, Yuki Umeda, Leif Waugh and Wyatt Zamaroni.

Southern Mariners fall

Victor Rodrigo and Nick Atwater picked up the lone hits in the Sunnyvale Southern Mariners' only TOC appearance, a 10-2 setback against Briarwood. Other team members of the top Southern major team were Kyle Nishimoto, Clayton Davis, Johnnie Greco, Brenden Johnson, Matt Maksim, Austin Gregory, Andy Ishii, Jeffrey DaRos and Tyler Miller and Parker Mitchell.

Serra A's ousted

Briarwood pitchers hurled another 2-hitter in a 10-0 win over the Serra A's. Ross Slaney and Warren Richards both singled for the A's. Their teammates were Kevin Barbano, Casey Douglas, Jeffrey Hardy, Joel Kitchen, Pablo Lozano, Cory McGee, Max Sloan, Jordan Spence, Garrett Wong and Damon Wong.