Andre Torres won’t be forgetting the marvelous season the Los Gatos Little League Junior All Star team’s had this year any time soon.
The squad advanced to the NorCal State Tournament for the fourth consecutive season.
They also did it as under-11 All Stars, U12 Majors and U13 Intermediate—accumulating seven banners in the process.
The core group of players won a District and Section championship in each of those years—with the exception of the Intermediate All Star team, which had a bye through District last year.
“I don’t know what other core group of boys have won that many banners for Los Gatos Little League,” said Torres, the Junior manager whose team battled valiantly but saw its season end Wednesday night in the NorCal State Tournament in Rocklin. “It’s a special group of boys who have been playing together for a long time.”
Parent Barry Bonnifield gave the players the moniker of ‘Banner Boys’ in a team text threat on June 26, and the term stuck.
The highlight of the Junior team’s season came in the Section 5 Tournament July 6-10 at Manzanita Park in Salinas.
Los Gatos lost its Section opener to Gilroy before reeling off four consecutive wins in the double elimination tournament to take the championship.
After the narrow 2-1 loss to Gilroy, Los Gatos beat Ferrasci Park 13-12 before edging Gilroy 5-4 to clinch a spot in the championship round against Los Altos, the lone remaining undefeated team in the tournament.
Los Gatos would have to beat Los Altos twice to win the title.
And that’s exactly what happened.
Los Gatos won 13-9 on July 9 before coming back the next day and trouncing Los Altos 17-2 in a game that was called after four innings due to the mercy rule.
Talk about finishing with a bang.
“It was pretty nerve-wracking at times,” Torres said. “But this team has a never-say-die attitude, which allowed us to win those close games.”
The roster includes Kalin, Aarav Chugh, Brixton Mentz-Bonnifield, Carson DeMaestri, Cruz Catipon, Dexter Torres, Grant Browder, Jimmy Mort, Kenji Okubo, Lucas Bottoms, Nico Flores, Ryan Carlisle, Timmy McNeil and TJ Lombardi. The assistant coaches are David Lombardi and Nico Flores.
Los Gatos was involved in some white knuckle contests, including an elimination game against Ferrasci Park. Los Gatos trailed 6-1 before mounting a huge comeback.
It culminated with a stunning, game-ending successful pickoff at first base as Ferrasci Park had the potential tying runner on third.
Los Gatos’ performance the following day against Gilroy was even more impressive. Having already lost to Gilroy in the Section opener, Los Gatos found itself trailing 4-2 entering the bottom of the seventh–just three outs away from tournament elimination.
McNeil drew a leadoff walk; Mentz-Bonnifield singled; and Kalin was hit by a pitch to load the bases.
Torres followed with a sacrifice-fly RBI to cut the deficit to 4-3.
After Carlisle walked to load the bases for the second time in the inning, Lombardi hit a run-scoring single to make it 4-4.
Catipon came up next, working the count full before hitting a grounder to first base that easily scored Kalin, who was running on contact.
“Those two games showed the mettle of the team,” Andre Torres said. “Always fighting to the end, whether we’re up or down.”
Los Gatos pulled off two successful hidden ball tricks—against Ferrasci Park and in the first of two games with Los Altos—at crucial moments.
These proved to be momentum shifters, Torres said.
It was Torres’ son, Dexter, who brought the abracadabra.
The boys had been practicing the maneuver and were intent on seeing it work in a game.
“We (coaches) were telling them not to do it during the season, not to fool around with it,” Andre Torres said. “So it was kind of funny when they pulled it off not once but twice.”
Los Gatos scored a total of 30 runs in its two games against Los Altos to put an exclamation point on its tournament championship.
By the time the winner-take-all game rolled around, Los Gatos was locked in and ready to dominate.
Every player on the Los Gatos roster got on base in the final game.
“Everyone contributed, and Cruz, Brixton, Nico, Dexter—they were all up on the higher end of the list,” Andre Torres said. “Colton was a beast as he caught almost every inning. And Ryan Carlisle made some awesome defensive plays at second base.”
Eight of the 14 players on the roster pitched in the tournament, including workhorses Chugh, Flores, McNeil and Lombardi. Chugh was the winning pitcher on record in both the District and Section-clinching championship games.
Andre Torres praised the players’ parents for dedicating a large part of their summer to baseball, appreciating the potential for a magnificent summer run.
“You walk around Los Gatos and people say nice things about the team, or we get texts saying they’re following us on (live scorekeeping app) Gamechanger,” Torres said. “It’s kind of cool knowing you have the whole town behind you. It just goes to show how close-knit the community is.”
