San Mateo American falls in heartbreaker Section 3 finale

American starting pitcher Jagger O’Brien was brilliant through six shutout inning, allowing just one hit while striking out 11. But facing the American bullpen in the bottom of the seventh, Danville set the table with a two-out single, followed by an infield error to extend the inning, before Owen Beck hammered an RBI double into the left-field corner for the walk-off victory.

“It always sucks when you’re the pitcher who gets walked off,” San Mateo American manager Jason Gordon said. “But the reality is, we’ve got to field that ground ball ... and get him out of the inning. That should have never happened.”

The American relief pitcher, right-hander Connor Workman, is one of the cornerstone arms of the team. One of last year’s Big Three that became synonymous the the 2022 Northern California championship run of the “No-No Kids” — a group who totaled four no-hitters in nine games — Workman crouched down in anguish as his inside fastball jumped off the bat of Beck, and had tears running down his face before Danville’s George Krause even crossed the plate with the game-winning run.

“[Beck] got one in and jumped on it,” Gordon said. “So, good for him. He’s a good hitter. He’s got a quick bat. We’ve done a good job with it the last two games until that one.”

American had its chances though — an unreal amount of them.

While Danville had just five batters reach throughout — that includes the three straight to end it in the seventh — American left a mind-blowing 15 runners on base, including stranding the bases full four times: in the first, the third, the fourth and the sixth.

“We lost that game in the first inning, the third inning, the fourth inning; we had the bases loaded four times,” Gordon said. “We left 14, 15 guys on base in a seven-inning game. That’s pretty hard to do.”

Danville’s pitching tandem of starter Gunnar Lee and reliever Brayden Ross were cleverly effective, though. While the two combined for six walks, two hit batsmen, had two runners reach on errors and another on a strikeout-wild pitch, the right-handers limited American to very little hard contact, and made clutch pitches without fail with their backs up against the wall.

“I think they pitched good,” O’Brien said. “It was like last year too. We had pitching but no hitting.”

American totaled just four hits in the game, three of them infield singles. But their best chance came in the sixth after O’Brien and cleanup batter Matthew Ward reached on back-to-back walks to start the frame. William Meza followed with a crisp, long liner, but it sailed right to the Danville center fielder for an out.

“I was thinking: Get it over his head so we could score one run,” Meza said.

It was the only hard-hit ball all night for American. And, as it turned out, it was the last of Meza’s summer All-Stars campaign.

“Sad ... because that was my only chance to get my last at-bat of the season,” Meza said.

O’Brien’s brilliant pitching performance came one night after Tuesday’s starting pitcher, Ward, fired a complete-game shutout against Danville in the first game of the championship round. American won Tuesday by the same score, 1-0, with a sixth-inning walk-off.

“[O’Brien] was amazing,” Gordon said. “Because we’d have these super momentum-killing outs, leaving the bases loaded, and he would come out and literally just mow right through them. He did everything he could. Yesterday, I thought Matty threw the best game I’d ever seen. Jagger might have one-upped him tonight.”

Dating back to last season, American and Danville have met five times in sectionals. The two teams have combined for just 10 runs in those five meetings. Last year, American won both matchups en route to the Section 3 10s title, by scores of 2-1 and 1-0. This year, Danville won the Section 3 11s tourney opener over American 4-0, before the teams flip-flopped 1-0 outcomes in the championship round.

“Disappointed,” Gordon said. “We wanted to play, obviously. We’re not building for next year. The 11s is great; winning the state tournament would have been awesome. But I told these guys, we’re building this thing for 12-year-old year. ... As much as we want to be there, we’re building this thing for next year.”

Danville now advances to the Division 2 Northern California State Championship 11s tournament opening Saturday at Garfield Park in Napa.