An upset and a comeback in the Morgan Hill Pony baseball Pony
division semifinals this week sent the Cubs and the Giants into the
City Championship game on Saturday. The No. 5-seeded Cubs upset the
top-seeded Red Sox 7-0 in Tuesday
’s semifinal. The Cubs had lost to the Red Sox 20-4 just 10 days
earlier.
An upset and a comeback in the Morgan Hill Pony baseball Pony division semifinals this week sent the Cubs and the Giants into the City Championship game on Saturday.
The No. 5-seeded Cubs upset the top-seeded Red Sox 7-0 in Tuesday’s semifinal. The Cubs had lost to the Red Sox 20-4 just 10 days earlier.
The No. 2-seeded Giants rebounded from a three-run deficit to pull off a 5-3 victory over the No. 3 Diamondbacks in Wednesday’s semifinal.
The Cubs and Giants will play for the City Championship on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. at Britton Middle School.
Complete results were not available for the Bronco, Mustang or Pinto division playoffs.
In the Pony division’s first semifinal on Tuesday, the Cubs, who ended the regular season at 10-8, were not even expected to come close to beating the Red Sox. The Red Sox, who finished the regular season with a 16-2 record, were figured to easily march right through the playoffs and into the City Championship game.
The Cubs, however, had other plans and were all business from the start.
In the first inning, the Cubs leadoff hitter, Stephen Smith, hit a line drive into right field for a base hit, which got by the right fielder and enabled Smith to get to third base. Smith scored on a ground ball hit by Stephen Tate for a 1-0 lead. With two outs, Joey McGee hit a hard groundball past first base into right field for a hit. The right fielder had trouble fielding the ball again, allowing McGee to get to third base, scoring on a base hit from Eric Sanchez to make the score 2-0.
Defensively, in the fourth inning, the Cubs’ Stephen Tate made a fantastic snab of a potential home run ball hit into right center by the Red Sox’ Matt Cummins to snuff out a rally.
In the fifth inning, the Cubs put up two more runs on a couple of Red Sox errors, a walk, a base hit by Eric Sanchez, a hard-hit line drive to shortstop by Sean LaBranche, and a grounder to second base by Kyle Hennings that scored a run.
In the bottom of the inning, Cubs pitcher Joey McGee closed out his five innings of one-hit, shutout pitching.
In the top of the 7th inning, the Cubs added three more runs on base hits by Sean LaBranche and Jeff Blean, and several walks.
Cubs pitcher Stephen Smith closed out the victory by tossing shutout ball in the bottom of the 7th inning.
Defensively for the Cubs, second baseman Eric Sanchez, rightfielder Steven Johnson and third baseman, Erik Aguaristiall had outstanding games.
In Wednesday’s second Pony division semifinal, the Giants overcame a first-inning explosion by the Diamondbacks to advance.
After the D-backs took a 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning, helped by triples from Matt Nilmeyer and Charlie McClung, the Giants scored one run in the bottom of the first, as Kevin Grove doubled in Robert Barsanti.
In the second inning, the Giants tied the score, as Anthony Bradley (who had walked) would eventually steal home on a delayed steal by Danny Nelson. Barsanti’s second hit of the game drove in Nelson.
In the fourth inning, the Giants took the lead for good as Garrett Stocker led off with a walk and scored on Barsanti’s RBI single. Grove immediately drove in Barsanti with a triple to give the Giants a 2-run cushion at 5-3.
Giants starting pitcher Joe Woodworth finished with four strikeouts in three innings, striking out the side in the second inning.
Reliever Kevin Orepeza pitched three beautiful innings, keeping the D’backs off-balance to notch the win.
Orepeza was helped by excellent defense from Grove, who had four putouts at third base.
Vince Hatakeyama came in to notch the save in the seventh, striking out the Diamondbacks’ powerful third and fourth hitters.
Barsanti went 3-for-4 and Grove went 2-for-3 for the Giants’ offense.
D-backs starting pitcher Jacob Dexter (four innings, five strikeouts) went 2-for-3 and had an RBI.
Following are game summaries from other Pony baseball playoff games:
Bronco division loser’s bracket game (Tuesday)
Giants 6, Braves 5
The fourth-seeded Braves took on the second-seed Giants Tuesday night at Burnett. The Braves came out blazing for the upset with Kenny Hall throwing 4 innings while surrendering only 4 hits with 9 strike outs.
Julio Aguayo, David Rotter, and Brett Fuller all had hits and scored in the first. They added another in the 3rd on Fuller’s RBI single. The Giants could only push 1 across the plate through 4 when J.P. Howard doubled with no outs and stole 3rd and Kevin O’Rouke hit a clutch 2 out RBI single. In the 5th the Giants Johan Perera, John Wylie and J.P. Howard all singled. With 1 run in , 2 on and 2 out it was Brian Perry’s 2 RBI ground rule double that evened the score. The Braves came back in the top of the 6th with a lead off bunt single by John Borgia who eventually came around to score the go ahead run. The Giants 6th was also productive as the bottom of the order answered back with one of there own. O’Rouke singled and once again Johan Perera delivered with a RBI single over the pulled in 3rd basemen’s head. In the top part of the 7th Howard got out of a jam when Rotter reached on a dropped 3rd strike out and Fuller singled, But both were left stranded with 2 huge strike outs to end the threat. With heroics in the bag, Wylie lead off with a hard single, Howard moved him over to third on a nice hit and run call. With no outs, Wylie on third, Perry hit the game winning sac fly scoring Wylie. Ryan Webb and R.J. Wright had singles for the Braves while the Giants Dillon Perera went 1 for 1.
Mustang division loser’s bracket game (Wednesday)
Indians 12, Athletics 7
In their second meeting in the Mustang Division playoffs, the Indians used late-inning offense to pull ahead of the Athletics and advance. The Indians struck first, scoring three runs in the 1st inning on a 2-RBI double from Austin Carvalho and a sacrifice grounder from Nick Swanson. The A’s produced their own fireworks in the bottom of the 1st, with a leadoff inside-the-park home run by Nelson Pyle, a single from Michael LemMon, and an RBI triple from Kyle Villa; however, three strikeouts from Indians pitcher Josiah Wylie limited the damage to 2 runs. The Indians added a run in the 2nd inning when Michael Medland led off the inning with a single and then stole 2nd, 3rd, and home on subsequent pitches to score.
The last two innings belonged to the Indians. The top of the 5th started well for the A’s, with pitcher Kyle Villa allowing a single and a walk but also striking out two. The Indians’ Andy Muller then hit a 2-RBI double and was able to steal 3rd and home to put the Indians up by three. The A’s mounted a rally in the bottom of the 6th, scoring a run, but it ended when Muller got three straight strikeouts.
