Season ends for Hillsborough 10s

Hillsborough would score its only two runs during that inning as it simply could not muster much offense in SRV’s 5-2 victory, which clinched the Section 3 title and advanced it to the Northern California State championship tournament.

“They had incredible depth of pitching. I think we faced all of them,” said Hillsborough manager John Gherini, whose team lost to SRV twice in the tournament.

Hillsborough countered with Momo Lubarsky, who did her best to keep her team in the game. A couple of first-inning errors by Hillsborough, however, opened the door for SRV to take a quick 2-0 lead after the first inning. After a leadoff single and fielder’s choice, SRV’s Mason Hall came to the plate and hit a single to right field that got past the Hillsborough right fielder for an error, enabling Milo Kaiser to score from first.

Camden Kangas followed with a walk and with Hall on third via a wild pitch, stole home when Kangas broke for second and stopped, drawing a throw from the Hillsborough catcher. The shortstop came in to field the throw and his return throw to the plate got past the catcher, with

But Lubarsky got a pair of strikeouts to get out of the inning, minimizing the damage. Lubarsky got two more strikeouts in the second inning as she and the Hillsborough defense kept SRV off the board.

Hillsborough’s offense, meanwhile, had a chance to get to Guevara, but he pitched out of some early trouble. He went to 3-1 counts to the first three Hillsborough batters, but ended up striking out two of them and walking Jack Veach.

In the second, Leo Matteucci led off the inning with a walk on four pitches, but he was left stranded as Guevara got a groundout, strikeout and popout to end the inning.

Brady Lien got another lead-off walk to start the third for Hillsborough. He eventually ended up at third on a pair of wild pitches. But Guevara stranded him there, getting two more strikeouts and a routine groundout to end that threat.

“[Guevara] was a good, hard strike thrower,” Gherini said. “Credit to him. He threw a lot of strikes.”

SRV gave itself some breathing room with a three-run third. Lubarsky had an 0-2 count on No. 11 hitter Miles Cook, but he eventually worked a walk to lead off the inning. Leadoff hitter Brantley Brazil followed with another walk to end Lubarsky’s outing. DeMartini came on in relief and was greeted by a two-run double to the right-center field gap off the bat of Kaiser to double SRV’s lead to 4-0.

After a groundout, Kangas came through with an RBI single to left to drive in Kaiser for a 5-0 lead.

DeMartini would settle in after that. He struck out the next two batters, the first two of eight straight retired to end the game.

Gherini said it was a toss up for who would get the start — Lubarsky or DeMartini — but he knew both would see the mound.

“It was a coin flip,” Gherini said. “We were going to have to rely on both today, anyway.”

In the fourth, Hillsborough finally got something going offensively. Guevara, who struck out seven during his start, struck out the first two batters of the inning before DeMartini finally broke up the no-no bid with a single just inside the third-base bag, ending the day for Guevara.

DeMartini would move to second on a wild pitch and Veach was walked by the SRV reliever to put runners on first and second. Dylan Viera followed and hit a ball to shortstop that was thrown away at second base, enabling DeMartini to score Hillsborough’s first run of the game, with Veach going to third.

With runners on the corners, Viera broke for second and stopped, When the SRV catcher threw down to second, Veach broke for home, stealing it to cut the SRV lead to 5-2. But Viera, who got caught in rundown, was tagged out to end the inning.

SRV got a little sloppy in the final two innings. It committed a pair of errors in the fifth, but Hillsborough could not take advantage. SRV booted another ball in the top of the sixth, but reliever Hall locked down the save by retiring the final three batters, ending the game on a strikeout.

“That San Ramon Valley team is a fantastic team,” Gherini said. “But I’m super proud of our kids for battling against elite pitching.”