The San Mateo American Legion Post 82 baseball team capped the Father's Day weekend by capturing the championship game of the Chico Father's Day Classic, beating the Vacaville Dodgers 4-3 on Sunday.
Pitcher Dan Puts, pitching on two-days' rest, threw six innings of six-hit ball before reliever Mike Ryder bailed out the team by recording a two-out strikeout with the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh.
Vacaville jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead with single runs in the first and second innings. But San Mateo, which finished the tournament with a 4-1 record, came back to tie the game at 2 with a two-run third inning. Leadoff hitter, who singled, ended up scoring San Mateo's first run on a Vacaville balk, and then tied the game on Andrew Batman's sacrifice fly.
San Mateo took the lead for good in the fourth when catcher Alex Akay hit a monster home run to give the Orioles a 3-2 lead.
They added an insurance run in the fifth, which turned out to be the game-winner. Jon Perry hit a bases-loaded, sacrifice fly in the fifth, scoring Bobby Scott.
Puts' performance was made even more impressive by the fact that it was the third game of the tournament in which he pitched. He picked up the win in the Orioles' 14-0 win over Grass Valley in the opening-game of the tournament, going five innings. He threw two pitches in picking up the save in a 7-3 win over the Napa River Dogs before going six strong innings in the championship game.
After splitting two games on Thursday, the first day of the tournament, San Mateo came back to win three straight. On Friday, Ashton Grewal dominated Napa, going 6 1/3 innings, giving up just two hits.
Scott's two-run double in the fourth was the big blow in San Mateo's four-run inning and Batman had an two-run single in the Orioles' two-run fifth.
Saturday, Marc Tantoco kept up San Mateo's stellar pitching, throwing a complete-game, three-hitter in a 2-1 win over host Chico.
After starting the season 2-6, San Mateo has won nine of its last 11 games.<
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