Jul 2, 2008

San Mateo Pony stars knock out Redwood City

By Greg Lydon / Daily News Correspondent

With their opponent only able to muster two hits on the night, the San Mateo 13-year-old Pony League All-Stars shut down and sent home the Redwood City All-Stars 3-0 Tuesday night in a losers bracket elimination game at McGarvey Field in Redwood City.

Michael Camel pitched five scoreless innings for San Mateo, allowing only one hit while sitting down seven hitters via the strikeout.

Michael Piry finished off the San Mateo win, pitching two shutout innings to keep San Mateo alive for another day. Piry allowed one hit and struck out three.

"It feels really good to get the win today," Camel said. "We want to keep winning so we can face South San Francisco in the finals."

Pitching in his third straight game, Camel was dominant. He changed speeds nicely all evening. Several hitters succumbed to the nasty curveballs.

"This was Mike's best pitching performance of the tournament," San Mateo catcher Lorenzo Arambuno said. "It was fun being able to catch for him tonight. Our defense was strong tonight, and we got the solid pitching to get the win."

Redwood City starting pitcher Ryan Cortez matched Camel pitch for pitch early, both holding their opponent scoreless the first three innings.

San Mateo scored all the runs its needed in the fourth, starting by taking advantage of back-to-back Redwood errors to gain a 1-0 lead.
After Piry scored on the second Redwood City infield error, Camel rocked a double to right field to put runners on second and third with no outs in the fourth inning.

Cleanup hitter Arambuno has a rocket arm behind the plate, but also provided San Mateo's biggest hit of the night, a 2-run RBI single up the gut to score two teammates and give his team a 3-0 lead after four innings.

"I was just trying to keep the ball away from their infielders and get a hit up the middle," Arambuno said. "I didn't want to do too much at the plate, just keep the ball on the ground."

Redwood City stranded runners on second base in the sixth and seventh inning, but the heavy-duty pitching from San Mateo ended the tournament run for Redwood City.

San Mateo gets a day off today but will play the San Carlos-Pacifica winner Thursday at 5 p.m.

"I won't be able to pitch on Thursday because of the rules, but I really want to," Camel said. "Our defense was great tonight. I'll play second base or shortstop if I'm not pitching Thursday."