San Mateo American stumbles in Nor Cals

Trailing 7-2 in the sixth inning, American set the table with their No. 11 and 12 batters reaching base. Then with the bases loaded, Jagger O’Brien pulverized a grand slam over the center field wall to bring American within a run. The Land Park bullpen bounced back though to close it out.

“They did a great job,” San Mateo American manager Jason Gordon said. “Turned [the batting order] over, the top of the order finally got it going. Just too little, too late.”

A tall task is now set before American if the roster of 12 Little League hopefuls want to continue their All-Star summer season. With the loss, American falls to the elimination bracket for a Wednesday rematch with Napa. The winner of that game must defeat Land Park twice, while Land Park need win just one more to claim the Nor Cal title and advance to West Regional play.

“We’re in a tough spot,” Jason Gordon said. “This is not going to be easy. We’ve got to get through tomorrow and then we’ll see. Then we’ll go from there.”

O’Brien, the ace of American’s pitching staff, took the ball for the first time in the tournament Tuesday. Coming off a shutout gem last Wednesday to secure the Section 3 championship, the right-hander got a rude awakening by a power-packed Land Park lineup.

Land Park homered three times in the game, including twice off O’Brien. After American jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first, Land Park answered with a two-run blast, a screaming line drive over the center field wall off the wood bat of Patrick Casella.

“He’s a very, very strong 12-year-old with a perfect swing,” Land Park manager Jeff Zimmerman said.

As Land Park’s players gathered at home plate to celebrate the homer, O’Brien couldn’t even bring himself to turn and watch. He just stared listlessly toward the center field wall in disbelief.

“I was just in bare shock,” O’Brien said. “I’ve never seen a team do that to me ever, especially twice.”

American squandered a big opportunity in the second, loading the bases with no outs against Land Park starting pitcher Dillon Chiuu. The right-hander battled back to coax a comeback grounder for a force out at the plate, then notched a strikeout for the second out of the inning. Land Park then turned to reliever Luke Wyatt, who induced a grounder to second to retire the side and strand the bases loaded.

Land Park’s second homer was off the bat of Henry Hastings, a solo shot in the third inning. O’Brien departed after three innings of work. After American manufactured another run on an O’Brien sacrifice fly in the fourth, Hastings connected again, this time for a pivotal three-run shot in the fifth inning on a towering blast over the center field scoreboard to make it 7-2.

“It’s necessary,” Jeff Zimmerman said of taking a five-run lead. “We thought we were doing good and they put it on us in the sixth. It was a very exciting game, and could have gone either way at that point.”

American relievers Connor Workman and Hudson Wong combined to set down the side in order in the top of the sixth, with a big outfield assist from Milo Werner in right field. Land Park’s Bryce Zimmerman led off with a screaming two-hopper past O’Brien’s glove at first, but Werner charged the ball and fired a strike to first in stride to get the runner by a step.

With O’Brien due up fifth in the bottom of the inning, there was no guarantee he would get to the plate again.

“Everyone was saying: ‘We’ll be back here,’” O’Brien said. “And I was just saying: ‘I want to finish this now. I want to win this game.’ I tried. I didn’t have the opportunity to fully win the game, but I did as best as I could.”

It was three spirited at-bats that set the table of O’Brien. Chase Gordon led off by getting hit by a pitch. Then No. 12 batter Carter Weyer fouled off three tough pitches during a nine-pitch battle before reaching on an infield error on a sharp grounder to the right side.

“Cody and Carter, we told them: ‘Your job is to get the top of the lineup with you guys on base,’” Jason Gordon said. “‘I don’t care how you have to do it.’ Cody, he did his thing, wear it right in the tiniest butt cheek in the world, and then ... Carter, it didn’t look pretty, but you see a bunch of pitches and you force them to make a play. It’s Little League baseball.”

Werner followed by getting hit with a painful fastball to the forearm. After Land Park got the first out of the inning with a force out at the plate on a comeback grounder, O’Brien cashed in with a booming grand slam homer to center.

O’Brien said teammate Christopher Moreno gave him some advice prior to the at-bat. After popping up to right with his third-inning sacrifice fly, Moreno told O’Brien to try to hit the ball on the ground.

“For some reason, it just worked,” O’Brien said. “He gave me two curveballs, one in the dirt and then one high and out and I went with it.”

Then with two outs, Moreno hit perhaps the hardest ball of anyone in the game, a screaming line drive down the left-field line that one-hopped the wall. The ball was struck so hard, Moreno had to settle for a single. Land Park hunkered down and recorded its fifth strikeout of the game to finish it out.

“It just wasn’t meant to be,” Jason Gordon said.