San Benito 10U travel baseball team goes 4-0 at Halloween
Bash
SUNNYVALE
The San Benito Smashers 10U squad took another first-place finish last weekend – that’s five in seven tournaments – after compiling a 4-0 record at the Halloween Bash tournament at Sunnyvale’s Twin Creeks Sports Complex.
The Smashers weren’t necessarily challenged until the final inning of the final game, but even then they managed to hold on for the championship win. In total, San Benito outscored their opponents by a 41-9 margin.
“It’s got to be a team effort,” manager Frank Soto said. “It’s got to be a collective effort to pull this off every time.”
After beating the PYB Blaze of Los Altos 13-1 in three innings to open the tournament (Alex Soto pitched all three innings), the Smashers followed with an 11-1 victory over the Berkeley River Cats.
Josh Zanger and Matt Hill combined for six innings on the bump against the River Cats, a game in which pushed the Smashers to the semifinals.
There, DaVonte Butler threw six complete innings for San Benito en route to a 13-4 win against the Petaluma Baseball Club, setting up a championship final against the Central Coast White Caps out of Santa Cruz.
The Smashers carried a 4-1 lead to the sixth behind pitcher Tim Manderson in the championship game. But the White Caps started the final inning with a walk, then capitalized on a San Benito error to put runners on the corners before a two-run double by Central Coast cut the Smashers’ lead to just one run.
“But that’s as close as they got,” Soto said. “That actually turned out to be a pretty good ball game.
“Granted, we had a lot of chances to score runs. We just couldn’t bring them home … I’m sure we’ll run into them again.”
Manderson (.750), Drew Williams (.700) and Zanger (.667) led the Smashers offensively, while both Williams and Izzack Olejnik provided inside-the-park homers for the San Benito squad.
The Smashers have two tournaments remaining, and will play on Nov. 15 and 16 in Bakersfield.
