San Mateo wins six straight to capture 11s championship

San Mateo accomplished the first five. Its fourth win in a row was a 6-4 decision over Hillsborough in the losers’ bracket final Sunday. San Mateo then handed winners’ bracket representative Alpine its first loss of the tournament with an 8-4 win Monday to set up Tuesday’s winner-take-all championship game.

In the end, San Mateo got some gutsy pitching and a breathing-room homer in the fourth inning to cap its improbable run to the District 52 crown with a 5-2 win over Alpine at San Mateo’s Trinta Park.

“It has been a great ride,” said San Mateo American manager Jon Wells. “I knew we had the team to do it. I got a team who is solid 1 through 12.”

Alpine, by virtue of being the winners’ bracket winner, needed to be beaten twice to be denied the title. After a tough opening game to the tournament, a 2-0 win over Belmont-Redwood Shores, Alpine pretty much cruised into the championship series. It beat Foster City 7-2 in the winners’ bracket semifinals and mercy-ruled Hillsborough in the winners’ bracket final.

Despite Monday’s 8-4 loss to San Mateo, Alpine seemed to have shaken off that disappointment by jumping out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning Tuesday against San Mateo starting pitcher Brayden Sole. With one out, Derek Armstrong singled and with two outs Nolan Levinson walked. Siméon Oullette-Massiou singled to load the bases and Dylan Dossola drove in the first run of the game with a single.

But Sole limited the damage by leaving the bases loaded when San Mateo right fielder Owne Bittle threw out the baserunner at first to end the inning.

It would be a recurring theme for Sole, who weaved his way through traffic all game long, getting out of bases-loaded jams in the fourth and fifth innings, as well.

“Runners left on base,” was how Alpine manager Dave Levinson summed up the game. “Fifteen hits and just two runs. Hard to win a ball game like that.”

San Mateo took the lead for good in the bottom of the second, scoring three classic Little League runs on two hits. Zach Marinec led off the inning with a double, went to third on a groundout and scored on a passed ball. Joaquin Lee reached on an error, went to third on a passed ball and scored on a wild pitch.

Bobby Zapala then reached on a dropped third strike. He took second on a wild pitch and came around to score on JT Pettigrew’s RBI double.

Alpine got a run closer in the top of the fourth, with Garrett Weiss, who had a one-out single, scored on a Jack Chambers single to left to cut the San Mateo lead to 3-2.

Alpine’s bid to tie or take the lead, however, died in the glove of San Mateo shortstop Colton Baker. Alpine leadoff hitter Patrick Breslin tried to loop a single over the head of Baker, who ranged into shallow left-center field to make an over-the-shoulder grab to end the inning with the bases loaded for the second time in the game.

“[Sole] pitched fantastic,” Wells said. “He got into a lot of jams, but he was consistently in the strike zone and he put pressure on the Alpine hitters. At the end of the day, no one hit the ball hard.”

San Mateo then grabbed back momentum in the bottom of the fourth. Baker walked to lead off the inning before Bittle jumped on a 1-2 curveball and sent a towering shot over the fence in left-center field and off the black, Stewart Chevrolet pop-up tent.

It was Bittle’s second homer in three games games.

“My dad (San Mateo American assistant coach Adam Bittle) said if he throws a curveball, let it sit,” Bittle said. “I was just trying to hit a line drive and when you hit line drives, the ball just flies.”

The home run gave San Mateo its biggest lead of the game, 5-2.

“It made it a little less stressful,” Bittle said.

But not stress-free, because Alpine refused to go quietly. In the top of fifth, Charles Saste cracked a one-out double and Nolan Levinson reached on an error. Another error allowed Oullette-Massiou to reach and load the bases.

At that point, Coach Well turned to his son, Carter Wells, to get San Mateo American out of the jam, and Carter Wells did so with aplomb. He struck out the first batter he faced on three pitches for the second out of the inning. He threw two more strikes to Breslin before he hit a slow chopper through the middle of the infield.

Sole, who had moved to shortstop, had no time to get the runner at first and instead wheeled and threw to third base to force out Nolan Levinson on a bang-bang play to end the inning.

“I was ecstatic,” Carter Wells said. “I felt like my arm was on fire, but I put some arm juice on there and was throwing absolute heat.”

Carter Wells still had some work to do and Alpine made him earn the save in the sixth. Weiss blooped a single to shallow left-center field to lead off the inning for Alpine and Teddy Hogan bunted for a single to bring the tying run to the plate.

Charlie Goldstein followed and hit a fly ball to shallow center field. Alexander Bayer made the catch and threw to shortstop Sole who at second base. The throw beat the runner for an 8-6 double play.

That took the wind out of Alpine’s sails, but there was one last dramatic moment. Chambers hit a grounder to second, but the San Mateo American second baseman was handcuffed the ball, booting it back into the base path.

But Sole, who was covering second, managed to stretch out and grab the ball off the ground, keeping his foot on the bag and forcing out Hogan to end the game and  begin San Mateo's celebration.

“They deserved to win,” Coach Levinson said.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include the correct timeline of events to the end of the top of the fifth and the top of the sixth.