Both Morgan Hill teams were eliminated during the Pony Baseball
Division Sectional tournament at Britton School.
Both Morgan Hill teams were eliminated during the Pony Baseball Division Sectional tournament at Britton School. The San Jose PAL ‘A’ team defeated the Morgan Hill ‘A’ team in the championship 8-2.
The PAL team moves on to the Regional Tournament in Los Altos. The other Sectional tournament winner was Los Gatos, a team that Morgan Hill ‘A’ defeated 6-1 by in a July 4 tournament in Santa Clara.
Morgan Hill ‘A’ reached the championship game by defeating the Morgan Hill ‘B’ team 14-3 the night before. The ‘B’ team had reached this semifinal game by edging Saratoga ‘A’ 9-8.
In the semifinal, Morgan Hill ‘A’ took an early 1-0 lead on a leadoff single by John Stemel and an RBI single by Chris Barber. MH ‘A’ starting pitcher Cameron Willis set the MH ‘B’ team down in order in the first two innings.
In the third inning, MH ‘B’ took a 3-1 lead on a double by Kevin Vye and singles by Brian Costello and Jonathan Simcho. The rally was aided by three MH ‘A’ errors. These proved to be the only runs scored by the MH ‘B’ team. Blaine Sutton and Stemel held the MH ‘B’ team scoreless for the remainder of the game.
The MH ‘A’ team broke the game open in the fourth inning after Bryan Yates gave up just one run in the first three innings. Barber led off the fourth with a single. Willis and Michael Giancola were hit by pitches to load the bases with two outs.
Chris Arce and Sutton followed with singles to plate three runs. In the following inning, MH ‘A’ scored four more runs on two errors, a single by Eric Martin, a double by Anthony Guidry, and walks to Giancola and Arce. In the sixth inning, MH ‘A’ tacked on six more runs after its first two batters were out.
During the sixth inning, Martin and Willis doubled. And Kenny Howell, Eddie Gomez and Stemel singled, Guidry and Arce walked and Sutton was hit by a pitch. Stemel had three hits in the game. Barber, Arce and Martin had two hits apiece. Jim Molnar and Timmy O’Rourke had singles for the ‘B’ team.
In the championship game against PAL, Gomez started at pitcher and baffled the big hitting team for three innings. The MH ‘A’ defense played well behind Gomez, giving up only a single run in the second inning on a two-out walk and a triple by Josh Espinosa.
The MH ‘A’ team threatened in the first two innings with a single by Barber in the first and then a leadoff walk by Arce and Gomez in the second. Stemel sacrificed the runners into scoring position with a perfectly executed bunt.
But PAL pitcher Randall Hoppe struck out the next two batters to end the threat.
Morgan Hill took the lead in the fourth inning when Willis was hit by a pitch to start the inning. Martin then followed with a line drive homer to right field to make the score 2-1. This turned out to be Morgan Hill’s last hit of the game.
In the third inning, the PAL leadoff hitter hit a hard shot down the line, but Barber made a strong throw to Arce at second base. Gomez then retired the next two hitters, including the dangerous Hoppe.
Things went downhill after that as PAL scored three runs on three singles to start the fourth inning.
And PAL put the game away with four more runs in the fifth, included a two-run homer by Hoppe, who hit several in the tournament.
The Morgan Hill ‘A’ team finished in second place with a 3-2 record, losing only to PAL. Morgan Hill ‘B’ finished in third place with a 2-2 record.
