Palo Alto claims District 52 Intermediate title

Backed by the stalwart arms of right-handers Angel Ochoa-Burgos and Nate Signorello-Katz in Friday’s tournament finale, Palo Alto reached the mountain top. Storming through the elimination bracket, Palo Alto won five games in five days, capped by Friday’s 11-1 victory over San Carlos at Red Morton Park to claim the District 52 Intermediate championship.

It marks the third straight season Palo Alto has won the Intermediate title.

“It was tough,” Palo Alto manager Felix Lo said. “We lost the first game and we had to win five games in five days to get here, with everyone pitching in, everybody pitching a little, everyone gutting it out. It was a team effort.”

Ochoa-Burgos and Signorello-Katz proved workhorses, each coming back on one day’s rest to combine for six innings in the abbreviated, mercy-rule victory. Each of them stayed under 50 pitches in Wednesday’s 11-1 win over Pacifica, allowing them to pitch Friday.

Ochoa-Burgos bulled his way through the four inning, finishing off his outing with his sixth strikeout of the night. The sturdy right-hander was audibly grunting while maxing out with his fastball through the fourth inning, but went stealth mode to quietly peel off a curveball for that last swing-through while his hat crooked and nearly tumbling off his head.

“It felt pretty good,” Ochoa-Burgos said of how his arm felt throughout the game. “I started feeling it more in the [fourth].”

The key to Ochoa-Burgos’ outing was in neutralizing the top of the San Carlos batting order. The right-hander held the top five batters in the opposing order to a 1-for-9 clip.

“I focused more on the first five batters, trying not to get them on base,” Ochoa-Burgos said. “I know they can do damage.”

San Carlos totaled just two hits overall, with No. 3 batter Carson Ettinger producing the only hit from the top of the order.

“The top of the order, I think we’ve been hitting pretty well,” Ettinger said. “But today, we just couldn’t get the bats going at the top.”

Signorello-Katz took care of the rest, setting down all six batters he faced to close out the championship. The right-hander struck out one, induced three infield grounders and an infield pop-out. The only ball he let out of the infield came on the final pitch of the night, a fly ball to right fielder Enzo Matsuzawa to end it.

“He’s been pitching really well,” Palo Alto’s Toby Johnson said. “He’s been striking out kids and pitching to contact.”

Johnson produced the RBI single in the top of the sixth that invoked the 10-run mercy-rule. He was 2 for 3, and scored a run in the second after reaching on a strikeout-passed ball. It was the second time a Palo Alto batter reached on a dropped third strike. Both scored.

San Carlos starting pitcher Matthew Harville took the tough-luck loss, and found himself trailing 3-0 after two innings before he even surrendered his first hit. Harville worked five innings and totaled eight strikeouts.

“We kind of saved him until we needed him,” San Carlos manager Matt Miskelly said. “He came in and pitched great today but we made too many mistakes.”

San Carlos’ only run plated in the second. Harville drew a one-out walk and moved to second on an Austin Lindberg single. The runners moved up on a passed ball. Peter Madigan then grounded out to first to drive home Harville.

Palo Alto’s biggest swings of the bat came during a five-run third. Emmett Gruin recorded his team’s first hit with bolt RBI triple up the left-center gap. Tiran Zia followed with an RBI single, and Paxton Liu delivered a two-out RBI double. After Signorello-Katz got hit by a pitch, Ochoa-Burgos capped the rally with a sharp RBI single through the middle.

Liu added an RBI double in the sixth before Johnson’s backbreaker RBI single to make it 11-1.

“I felt relieved,” Johnson said of his RBI single in the sixth, “because I knew our defense could get the next outs in the next inning.”

San Carlos was without Austin Kim, who sustained a scary injury earlier in the tournament in Tuesday’s 6-4 win over Pacifica. Kim was at the plate and took a pitch to the face, causing a lengthy delay as an ambulance was called to rush Kim to the hospital.

“Very scary,” Matt Miskelly said. “The ambulance came and took him away. He was hospitalized over night.”

Kim sustained multiple fractures to his face, but was released from the hospital Wednesday and attended each of San Carlos’ championship-round games Thursday and Friday.

“We all knew was coming but we were stoked,” Matt Miskelly said. “They were excited. We tried to rally around — we tried to use him as a reason to make it, but Palo Alto was too much for us.”

San Carlos posted a 2-2 record in the tournament, with three of its games being played against Palo Alto. San Carlos topped Paly 7-6 in last Saturday’s tourney opener, then advanced to the championship round with a 6-4 win Tuesday over Pacifica. San Carlos needed be defeated twice in the championship round, and dropped Thursday’s championship-round opener 8-3 to Palo Alto.

“I think we did pretty good,” Ettinger said. “The first two games we did a lot better than I expected because we got the bats going, we got the fielding — not many errors. But the third and fourth games we got sloppy a little bit.”

Palo Alto now advances to the Section 3 Little League All-Star tournament, opening Saturday, June 29, at Red Morton Park.