It
’s starting to look a lot like last year for the Morgan Hill
Pony 13s all-star team. Four straight victories in all-star play –
including an 11-0 blowout win in Wednesday’s finale – captured the
Sectional Tournament title for the local all-stars. (MH advances to
the Regional Tournament and w
ill start play against Diablo Valley today at 2:30pm at John D.
Morgan Park in Campbell.)
It’s starting to look a lot like last year for the Morgan Hill Pony 13s all-star team.
Four straight victories in all-star play – including an 11-0 blowout win in Wednesday’s finale – captured the Sectional Tournament title for the local all-stars. (MH advances to the Regional Tournament and will start play against Diablo Valley today at 2:30pm at John D. Morgan Park in Campbell.)
And, one could be forgiven for already comparing this year’s squad to the MHPB Bronco all-star team that advanced all the way to the West Zone Tournament in Maui last season, just a few wins away from the Bronco World Series.
After all, most of the players on that team are stalwarts on this year’s Pony 13s squad, which has demonstrated some of the same solid hitting, pitching and fundamentals that propelled them deep into the postseason last year.
But MH manager Ken Bradley would only admit that he’s happy with the way his team is progressing so far.
“We’re getting better and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Bradley said. “It’s important in tournament play to keep getting better.”
In just the space of four Sectional tourney games, played at Los Gatos’ Fisher Middle School, the MH Pony 13s showed improvement.
After edging Santa Clara 2-1 in its opener, MH cranked up its offense in wins over host Los Gatos (8-3) and San Jose Pacific (10-6) before putting it all together in Wednesday’s rematch against Santa Clara.
Wasting little time, MH jumped on top 3-0 in the first inning, then scored three more in the second inning on RBI doubles from Michael Singleton and Chris Bradley, two more in the third and three in the fourth on Robbie Coy’s RBI single and Greg Hamik’s two-run single to provide the final 11-0 margin.
Meanwhile, Santa Clara had no success against MH starter JP Howard, who showed fine control and poise in the shutout effort.
“That’s the key to JP, he throws strikes,” Bradley said.
The game was ended after the fifth inning due to the 10-run rule.
To be fair, Santa Clara was bound to tired after having to win four loser’s bracket games in three days, including two on the Fourth of July, to set up the rematch with MH.
But that was the advantage MH earned by winning the opener, Bradley said.
Santa Clara also advances to Regional Tournament play on its own home field.
