Jul 18, 2008

Burlingame's 8-9 hitters burn Los Altos

Road team claims legion victory in extra innings

By Greg Lydon / Daily News Correspondent

Two Burlingame runners stood in scoring position with two down in extra innings. All Bryan Kuh needed to do was find a hole.

Kuh, Burlingame's No. 9 hitter, lined a shot just over the head of the Los Altos first baseman into right. The clutch at-bat brought across two teammates, helping the Burlingame 17-and-under American Legion team defeat Los Altos 12-10 in nine innings Thursday evening at Mountain View High School.

The two-run game-winner from Kuh and a three-hit performance from No. 8 hitter Sammy Phan helped Burlingame sneak away with a wild 12-10 victory on the road.

"Without a doubt I'm pumped to get out of here with a win," Burlingame coach Brian Blanton said. "(Coach) Ben (Lewis) has done a great job with Los Altos. He's instilled a lot of fight into them. They battled us until the very end tonight."

Los Altos threw the first punch of the night with two scores in the third inning. Wes Righetti ripped an RBI single to right, giving the Bears a 2-0 lead. After Burlingame tied the score at 2-2, Los Altos answered with two more runs in the fourth to take a 4-2 lead.

"The last two games, our team has done a phenomenal job of being competitive," Lewis said.

His young squad hasn't been able to get into the win column as often as it would like. The rough summer for Los Altos got even bumpier in the fifth. Derek Rodrigues pitched four strong innings for Los Altos, but the right-hander's defense let him down in a disastrous fifth for the Bears. Burlingame scored seven runs in the inning; only two were earned.

"Unfortunately for Derek, that inning has been the story of his summer," Lewis said. "He has pitched very well for us every time he's gone out there. We just never seem to help him out defensively."

Ryan Bender hit a sac fly to center field to make the score 4-3 Los Altos, then the wheels started to come loose for the home club. A two-out routine grounder to third looked like out No. 3 of the inning; instead a throw home to try to get a charging Burlingame runner as dropped by the Los Altos catcher and the score was tied 4-4.

A dropped fly in right scored two more runs, and an error at shortstop put another tally on the board in the next two at-bats. By the end of the inning, Burlingame had taken a 9-4 lead and a frustrated Rodrigues was out of the game.

"You can't give good teams extra outs and extra bases," Lewis said. "We put ourselves in a hole, but we battled back later on."

Burlingame took a 10-6 lead into the bottom of the sixth, but after starting pitcher Francis Cooke left the game, the feisty Los Altos bats started to claw back into the game.

Los Altos loaded the bases then drew back-to-back walks to push across two runs and pull within two runs.

Dom Steil provided the big knock Los Altos needed after a pitching change, rocking an RBI single to left field that scored two to tie things at 10-10.

Both sides put up zeros in the seventh and eighth innings before the tie was broken by Kuh in the ninth.

Bender closed the game out on the hill for Burlingame with a nice stop on a comebacker for the final out.

"I'm really happy with the bottom of our lineup," Blanton said. "The back of the order all came through with big hits for us tonight. Great team effort to get the win."

Burlingame will travel to play Gilroy on Saturday, then close out the regular-season schedule against Half Moon Bay on Wednesday.

Los Altos finishes its regular season with a doubleheader against Gilroy on Sunday at St. Francis High School in Mountain View.

"We just want to continue this momentum into the weekend," Lewis said. "We're going into the league tournament as a sleeper. We want to sneak up on a couple teams."