San Mateo National slides into District 52 11s semifinals

Thompson was unfazed, though, and responded by firing a gem, notching 12 strikeouts through 4 1/3 innings to lead National to a 5-1 victory over M-A.

“It felt like I was able to keep my cool and just pitch the rest of the game,” Thompson said.

With the win, National advances to Saturday’s winners’ bracket semifinal round to face host Hillsborough. And National has its pitching lined up well, thanks much in part to Thompson. The southpaw opened the tournament by working five innings in a 6-3 win over Palo Alto.

Now, National manager Joe Giribaldi has two cornerstone arms in Carter Barbera and Dean Giribaldi available to pitch in Saturday’s semifinal round. The two already paired for one gem in the tournament with an 8-2 win over Belmont-Redwood Shores, as Barbera struck out 11 and Dean Giribaldi struck out three.

“Positioned exactly where I want to be,” Joe Giribaldi said. “This tournament can go left so fast, and you can use pitchers and be down to no pitchers for the championship game, or the semis. I’m in a position now where I have a couple of my stronger pitchers available for that game.”

After Thursday’s first-inning hiccup, Thompson was in fine form. Following Leeper’s home run, he set down the next six M-A batter in order. The last nine outs he recorded on the afternoon were by way of the strikeout. M-A didn’t manage another hit against him until Fiona Foley socked a leadoff single to right-center in the fifth.

But M-A starting pitcher Jackson Taylor was up for a pitching duel. And after National scratched out a run in the second inning on an RBI single from Toby Gray to tie it 1-1, Taylor settled in to trade zeroes with Thompson for two innings into the fifth.

Taylor worked 4 2/3 innings, allowing three hits while striking out six. The right-hander departed amid a 1-1 tie with two runners on, but both runners would eventually score to tag Taylor with a tough-luck loss.

“Amazing,” Menlo-Atherton manager Shane Goudey said of Taylor’s outing. “Dominant, confident, mixed his pitches in really well with each other, kept everybody off kilter. Nobody really got any momentum against him. Our issue was we were dealing with pitch-count issues, potentially with a long tournament. So, we had to pull him a little early and go from there. But he was great. He was fantastic as always.”

It was truly tough luck that cost Taylor and M-A. With Leeper on in relief facing a two-on, two-out jam, Thompson greeted him with a bunt. It went right back toward the mound and Leeper read it well. But as he got to the ball quickly, he caught a spike, lost his footing, and fell to the ground to allow Thompson to leg out a bunt single to load the bases.

“Bases loaded at that point, really no damage done,” Goudey said. “We could have contained it but San Mateo National did their job and came up and hit the ball and got the runners around.”

With the bases loaded, it was Carter Seydel who slid across home plate with the go-ahead run. A passed ball clipped off M-A’s catcher’s glove. And even though Seydel didn’t have a great look at it, and broke late to the plate, he still managed to swing National’s first lead of the game 2-1.

“I thought he trapped it but then I realized it got by him, so I took off,” Seydel said. “I thought I was going to be out, but he fumbled the ball, and I was in there.”

Dean Giribaldi followed with a clutch swing of the bat, hitting a sharp single that clipped Leeper’s glove and careened into the outfield for a two-run single.

M-A had a golden opportunity to overcome the 4-1 deficit in the bottom of the fifth, loading the bases with two outs to knock Thompson out of the game as the lefty reached the maximum pitch count of 85. National turned to reliever Henry Benham to face M-A’s cleanup hitter Bryant Ho.

“I felt very confident,” Thompson said. “He’s a good pitcher. He did really good in the regular season for Little League. And I just felt confident that we were going to win.”

Ho didn’t waste any time, jumping on the first pitch from Benham and hitting a screaming line drive to deep left field. Off the bat, everyone was thinking game-tying double, but National left fielder Dom Mack was positioned perfectly in deep left to make the catch.

“Yeah, I was kind of nervous,” Ho said. “I was just trying to get on base and get the run in.”

National added an insurance run in the top of the sixth inning on an RBI single from Gray, who went 2 for 3. It would have been a perfect day at the plate had Gray not been robbed of a single in the fifth when M-A left fielder Jax Young made a diving catch in shallow left on a sinking line drive.

But it was Gray’s second-inning RBI single that loomed large in the momentum department, as it answered back quickly for National after M-A’s early home run.

“To come back that next inning and to answer with a run … I was very proud of the boys,” Joe Giribaldi said. “Right there in the second, a 0-0 game basically.”

By the numbers, Leeper’s first-inning home run was an unlikely scenario. Leeper had never hit a regulation home run in his Little League career. Thompson hadn’t surrendered a homer since last season with his regular-season Pirates.

There have now been just two home runs hit in the District 52 11s tournament. Both have come from M-A. The other one was in their tournament opener against San Carlos when Quincy Quattlebaum broke a 1-1 tie with a grand slam. M-A went on to win the opener 10-1.

M-A now moves to the elimination bracket to face Palo Alto Friday at 3 p.m.