District 44 Little League all-star tournaments in full swing, and teams from seven Cupertino and Sunnyvale leagues are among the hundreds of baseball players competing to keep their season going.
Serra Little League’s 9-10 all-stars were among the few teams in the entire state still playing in late July last year, as they advanced to the Northern California Division tournament by capturing first-place flags in the always tough District 44 and Section 5 events.
Seven players from that squad, the first team in Serra’s 50-plus year history to win a section title, return as major division (ages 11-12) all-stars this season. Roy Chang, Malcolm Hsu, Ryan Lee, Matthew Merino, Gilbert Murillo, Justin Walker and Blake Rogers join Brian Ozawa Burns, Joshua Say, Spencer Tracy, Matthew Maloney and John Hart on Serra’s entry in the 13-team major tourney.
Serra was one of five first-round winners on June 27, along with Sunnyvale Metro, Tri-Cities, Santa Clara Westside and Santa Clara Briarwood.
Led by Say, who allowed just two hits over 5 2/3 innings and had two of his team’s six hits, Serra topped Mountain View 5-1, Metro dumped Cupertino American 8-1, Tri-Cities tripped Sunnyvale Southern 7-2 Westside whipped Homestead 10-2 and Briarwood blanked Moreland 10-0.
Cupertino National, Campbell and Los Altos had first-round byes.
After second round and elimination bracket games through July 2, the double-elimination tourney will resume on July 6. Briarwood will host the championship game on July 10 and an “if necessary” contest the next day. To keep up with all tournament schedules and results go to www.cad44.org.
In Serra’s win, Hsu’s RBI single keyed a three-run first inning, and Gilbert Murillo and Brian Ozawa Burns delivered hits in a two-run third.
Matthew Heuttel, Sam Bobick, winning pitcher Sean Miller and Brad McWilliams all had multiple hits to pace Metro’s win over Cupertino American. CA’s William Chang reached base three times and doubled home his team’s only run.
Other Metro all-stars include Gianni Cassara, Shaan Dias, Alex Hall, Fuma Kera, Aiden Maddison, Evan Ramirez, Rohan Sanganeria, Joshua Shiu and Cole Shumaker. Sean Miller is the manager and Scott Huettel and Antonio Dias are coaches.
Chang’s Cupertino American teammates include James Yao, Diego Perez, Daniel Van Wiggeren, Maxwell Chien, Maya Palumbo, Bharath Kumar, Nathan Fang, Jackson Prudhon, Niranjan Joshi, Yash Maheshwaran and Matthew Keelan. Richard Yao is the manager and Dale Chang and Matt Keelan are coaches.
The Tri-Cities major all-stars include Sayf Hafidi, Jean-Paul Herrera, Nicholas Hersh, Lukas Hoang, Nathan Hoang, Aaron Jew, Ian Kimura, Wonny Kwak, Jun Lee, Connor Long, Noah Moon, Adam Nobunaga and Dylan Phillips. The team is managed by Don Phillips.
Southern’s major stars include Frank Anderson, Rohan Bhandarkar, James Coogan, Aidan Forest, Toma Grundler, Gary Hall, Jesse Jordan, J.T. Kaprelian, Joey Kramer, Keita Maekawa, Alec Mortensen, Samarth Shah, manager Rich Hall and coaches Ralph Grundler and Dean Kramer.
The Cupertino National squad includes Austin Ota, Benjamin Chang, Brandon Ng, John Damozonio, Robert Borrego, Rohit Kumar, Sachin Dasari, Sean Fell, Sean Yang, Tarun Sarang, Tate Boynton, Tom Zhang, Willy Liou, manager Ingu Chang and coaches Brian Ota and Steve Damozonio.
10-11 all-stars
Sunnyvale Metro opened 10-11 all-stars tourney play with a 5-2 quarterfinal win over Santa Clara Westside on June 27.
Rashaun Bowden’s double and Jason Vo’s single ignited a three-run first inning that included RBI hits by Travis Soares and Rohan Gupta. Michael Moriarity doubled and scored on Josh Demo’s single in the third, and Bowden knocked in C.J. Brown for Metro’s final run. Vo and Bowden both had two hits, supporting winning pitcher Alex Babusis, who struck out six batters in 3 1/3 innings of work.
Other Metro all-stars include Mihir Borkar, John Broussard, Grayson Cassara, Ben Esquivel, Brennan Kelly, Cooper Levas, Lougan Meyer, manager Eric Brown and coaches Gavin Lorelle, Karl Broussard and Mario Cassara.
With the win, Metro joined Campbell, Los Altos and Mountain View in the winners’ bracket semifinals of the 11-team tourney, which continues through the championship game at Cupertino American on July 8.
Los Altos advanced with a 17-2 win over Sunnyvale National, which scored both of its runs in the third on Joe Aguilera’s second hit, Chase Davidson’s double, Brennan Larkin’s single and a double steal.
Other National all-stars include Max Whetzel, Luke Martinez, Rhys Sharp, Jay Hernandez, Tyler Kong, Dimitri Walghren, Branden Davidsen, Ryan Hook, Patrick Bartido, manager Will Whetzel and coaches Emmett Larkin and Johnny Hernandez.
Campbell started 2-0, including a 10-0 shutout of Cupertino National.
The CN all-stars include Colton Bell, Joseph Borrego, Arthur Chan, Elijah Diaz, Will Hook, Jacob Kannankunni, Owen Lassa, Daniel Na, Connor Nieh, Tanush Telati, Max Tarshis, Anakin Trotter, manager Tom Tarshis and coaches Tim Na and Shawn Hook.
Mountain View slowed down Moreland 4-1, after Moreland started strong with a 15-4 triumph over Cupertino American.
The CA all-stars include Roy Chien, Steven Pan, Jason Lo, Arjun Kumar, Tetsuo Eng, Harsh Deep, Riku Miyajima, Koki Eguchi, Jacob Lin, Bennie Chang, Jenner Lim, Justin Jeng, manager Kevin Eng and coaches Jensen Jeng and Kumar Ganesan.
9-10 all-stars
Metro and Serra both won their first two games, setting up a June 30 match-up in the winners’ bracket semifinals of the 9-10 all-stars tournament. The winner of that game was to play on July 2 in the winners’ bracket final against either Moreland or Santa Clara Westside.
Metro will host the championship game on July 7 and a possible “if necessary game” on July 8.
Metro’s two wins came against Cupertino National 9-6 and Mountain View 12-3. Meanwhile, Serra impressed with victories over Campbell 11-2 and Tri-Cities 21-3.
Metro managed to get past a challenging first-round opponent in Cupertino National. Leading just 3-2, Metro pulled away in the fourth with a five-run rally, sparked by RBI hits from Kyle Maddison and Bryce Sherman.
After another Metro run, CN tightened the game with four runs in the fifth. Singles by Jesse Yao and Calvin Fong sparked the flurry. Balls hit by Cameron Miller and Terrance Pai both were misplayed, the errors leading to three runs. Anthony Yew’s hit knocked in the final run for CN, which had led briefly 2-1 when Arnav Reddy drilled a two-run single in the bottom of the second.
Other CN all-stars were Kevin Gong, Wyatt Hook, Derek Hsiao, Gavin Hsu, Ethan Lin, Sudhit Rao, manager Doug Fong and coaches Eric Hsiao and Ken Yew.
In its next game against Mountain View, Metro fought back from a 6-4 deficit with a pair of four-run rallies. Maddison tied the game with a two-run single in the fourth, before pinch hitter Winston Wu came through with a go-ahead hit. In the fifth, Kailash Mennon and Conner Gosalvez spanked RBI doubles.
Other contributors for Metro, led by manager Kyle Myers and coaches Molly Sherman and Deb Maddison were Samik Singh, Matthew Cosentino, Landon Myers, Tyler Yi, Griffen Orr, Ryan Monroe, Shinsuke Nakamura and Christopher Han.
Metro was looking forward to tangling with Serra, which totaled 32 runs in its first two games. The Serra all-stars include Kyle Ashe, Nicholas Ashe, Jack Carter, Justin Gladfelter, Jared Gladfelter, William Halapua, Devin James, Andy Lau, Ryan Ohara, Joseph Pelster, Jacob Tang, Tai Thompson, Ryan Tsai.
The Southern all-stars were looking to bounce back in the elimination bracket after a rough 15-0 opening loss to Moreland. Team members include Aidan Acquistapace, Nicholas Bilsborrow, Oliver Chang, Jonathan Cohen, Charlie Deggeller, Andrew Eldredge, Nathan Enders, David Feigenbaum, Kyle Liu, Christopher Ng, Benjamin Roberts, Taiki Sato, Noah Takatsuno, Max Tran, manager Rick Acquistapace and coaches Dave Deggeller and Jim Roberts.
Tri-Cities also was looking to bounce back after its rough opener against Serra. T-C all-stars include Fareed Ahmed, Zachary Fujii, Aryan Ghiasi, Eugene Jew, Kyle Kimura, Phillip Long, Jak Ringer, Jon Ringer, Harry Robinson, Daryan Roesky, Anthony Tse, Alex Wu and manager Nick Long.