“How did we lose to that team?” pondered one player of the Half Moon Bay Junior Little League All-Star baseball team.
“We made too many mistakes,” was the response by several players.
 Mission-San Jose coach Ed Hugo shakes hands with Half Moon Bay pitcher Brett Berghammer following Mission-San Jose'€™s 4-3 win. Berghammer kept Mission-San Jose batters off balance all game long. |
Mission San Jose, based in Fremont, beat Half Moon Bay in the winner’s bracket game on July 20, 2-1. Half Moon Bay bounced back to beat Granada, 7-2, the next night.
That set up the July 22 match up at Max Baer Park in Livermore. Half Moon Bay needed to win that game to force one more game, to be played the next night.
Mission San Jose took the game’s first lead in the third, thanks to an error.
The score remained 1-0 until the fifth when Half Moon Bay took a 2-1 lead. Tom Howell doubled to right center to bring in Daniel Welch with the tying run.
“That was a great clutch hit by Tom,” Mike Rupert said.
Cole Watts singled to score pinch runner Cameron Hawk.
Mission San Jose tied the score in the bottom of the fifth, thanks to another fielding miscue.
Half Moon Bay took a one-run lead in the sixth as Rupert singled in Peter Bacich. But there was Mission San Jose, once again tying the score. Once again, it was an error that paved the way.
“I guess when we fought back, they battled back,” Rupert said. “They kept on coming back. We had to hold them and we couldn’t do it.”
In the bottom of the seventh, Mission San Jose loaded the bases on two errors and an intentional walk. A single past a drawn infield ended the game.
“We are pretty disappointed,” Rupert said. “For six weeks straight, if we weren’t playing, then we were practicing.”
During the post-game handshakes, both the Mission San Jose coaches made a special point to give starting pitcher Brett Berghammer a few words of encouragement.
“They both said I did a very good job of pitching,” Berghammer said.
The compliments didn’t take away from the sting of the loss.
“I thought we were going to win,” Berghammer said.
In the first meeting of the two, Bacich got two of Half Moon Bay’s six hits. Gabe Navarrete hit a run-scoring double.
The next night, Half Moon Bay rallied to beat Granada. Down 2-1 in the fifth, Half Moon Bay scored three runs in the fifth and added three more in the sixth to put the game out of reach.
Berghammer was 3-for-3 with three runs scored. Navarrete hit a two-run double in the fifth and a two-run double in the sixth.
Bacich went the first 6 1/3 innings to get the win. Zac LeBlanc got the save.
“We did show a lot of grit,” coach Rich Forslund said. “We just made too many mistakes.”
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