12-year-old baseball team wins first tournament, getting ready
for Cooperstown trip
GILROY – The young ball players on the Silicon Valley Extreme want to be playing like Hall of Famers by the time the 12-year-old squad heads to Cooperstown, N.Y. next month for a national tournament.
So before they head to the home of Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame, the Extreme are getting in as much action as possible – cramming in two tournaments in a week’s span.
“We’re prepping to go to Cooperstown. We’re trying to gel this team together,” said head coach Warren Gaspar, who has seven returners from last season along with five first-year players.
The Extreme went right to work in the Art Clark Invitational in Marina from June 16-21, winning four straight games to claim their first tournament championship of the season.
“We wanted to try to win for a confidence thing, but we also wanted to see who is going to be our starters, set-up guys and closers,” said Gaspar, whose pitching staff gave up only two runs in four games. “We found out a lot of stuff. We found out our weaknesses that we need to fix. We found out who will be our starters, set-up guys and closers.”
Gaspar, who formed the Extreme last season, also found out he’s got a talented team focused on playing its best baseball possible.
In their 3-0 championship victory over the Carmel ‘A’ squad, the Extreme got strong pitching from starter Zachary Decremer, who struck out seven in six shutout innings, and closer Kaohu Gasper, who retired the side in order to clinch the victory.
“He brings it,” said Gaspar of Decremer, who is five-foot-11, 196 pounds. “With his size – and he throws hard – and his intimidation up there, we thought it would buy us the upper hand. He pitched real well. He’s got good off-speed pitches, too. He had a couple of guys off-balance.”
The Gilroy-based team scored two runs in the first inning and one run in the third inning to jump out ahead early. The offense was led by Ron Chapa (1-for-3, triple, RBI, run-scored), Taylor Chris (1-for-3), Patrick Shields (1-for-2, run-scored), and Gaspar (2-for-3, walk).
“We also made some mistakes on base running. We had opportunities to blow the game wide open,” Gaspar said. “We played real good defense. When you give up zero runs, it means your pitchers are keeping the ball down.”
Decremer started the first game of the 12-team tournament, striking out five and pitching into the fourth inning to earn his first win with a 5-2 decision over defending champion Monterey. Chris came in relief and also struck out five in two-plus innings of work.
“That guys on fire pitching,” said Gaspar of Chris, who did not give up an earned run. “He’s hot.”
At the plate, Decremer went 2-for-3 with a run-scored, while Chris and Jared Schreckengost both had RBI hits. In addition, Gaspar and Dylan Nobida had base knocks.
The Extreme then outscored their opponents 19-0 in the next two games, defeating the Carmel ‘B’ team by a 12-0 margin and then Seaside by a 7-0 spread.
In the win over Carmel, Gaspar struck out seven batters and allowed only one hit through three innings. Relievers Maxwell Martin (3 IP) and Nicholas Dessau (1 IP) then preserved the shutout.
The big hitters were Gaspar (2-for-4, triple, RBI), Chris (2-for-4), Dessau (2-for-4, double), Jordan Holler (2-for-4), and Mike Cross (2-for-4, double.)
In the final game before the championship, Chapa struck out five over five innings of work with only one hit and then Holler whiffed four in the final two frames.
The Extreme scored runs in the second, third and fifth innings led by Decremer’s solo home run as well as standout efforts from Gaspar (2-for-4, two runs-scored), Nobida (2-for-4, two runs-scored), Schreckengost (1-for-3, double), and Dessau (1-for-3).
The Extreme will compete in Cooperstown July 31 through August 6 and also have tickets to a New York Yankees game.
“It hadn’t really sunk in until we started playing in this tournament. Now they’re starting to believe,” said Gaspar, who then had his team play in the Monterey Invitational two days after the championship game. “We were on a high from that and they were just drained.”
The local baseball team finished with a mere 1-3 tournament record, but it was not discouraging to Gaspar.
“It showed we were tired. We made the mental mistakes we didn’t make in the last tournament,” Gaspar said. “We beat ourselves. All we had to do is just play baseball and we’d be OK.”
The Extreme continue to practice and prepare for their upcoming tournament in upstate New York, where they will face some of the best little league teams in the country.
“Wt’s a great trip to check out, but we want to go there and be competitive,” Gaspar said. “Our pitching was good. Our defense played real well. We hit the ball well. We put a bunch of runs on, but we still haven’t getting back-to-back hitting. … It’s just a matter of what combination will put runs together every inning because the teams back east can hit.”
