Sports Digest Sports Digest (August 27, 2004)

Stompers take fifth nationally

The Valley Stompers, 16-A women's fastpitch softball team, placed fifth nationally at the Amateur Softball Association National Fastpitch Girls Softball Tournament held the last week in July in Bloomington, Ind.

The team earned a 9-2 tournament record, losing to the teams who took first and second at the tourney, Southern California Explosion and Arizona Suncats, respectively.

The team began the tournament facing the Oklahoma Gold, the topped-ranked team in that state. After eight tightly matched innings, the Stompers claimed a 1-0 victory.

That win pitted the Stompers against Kansas' KC Lasers. With Nicole Romero leading the way with three RBI's on three hits, Brittany Throne and Rebekah Weisser contributed two hits and two RBI's to the Stomper's 6-3 win.

Heading into bracket play and double elimination, the women went head to head with the Oregon Lil Saints for a shutout game.

Scoring for the Stompers opened with Alex Quesada's hard-line hit to the Saints' right field. A misplayed ball and Quesada's aggressive base running turned the hit into an inside-the-park homerun. On the defense side, Valerie Arioto recorded 12 strikeouts, sending the Saints packing.

The Salinas Storm fought toughly, making the Stompers earn a narrow 1-0 victory behind Arioto's eight strikeouts. With the pressure of two outs looming, Whitney Morgan singled, bringing Arioto in from third base to score the game's only run.

The Stompers went on to face the Southern California Explosion and its first loss, forcing the Stompers into the losers' bracket.

In that bracket, they claimed victory against the Southern California Batbusters. Jenny Bird's pitching kept the Batbusters off balance for the 9-4 game.

Brittany Wolf nailed three hits and two RBIs with Annie Varady earning a single, double and two RBIs.

The Houston Wave became the next notch on the Stompers' win list with Courtney Jones going 2-3 and the leading the team from a shortstop position throughout the tournament.

The Birmingham Bullets also proved to be a powerhouse. Going into the sixth inning, it was a no-hitter game until Arioto stepped up to the plate and slammed the second pitch over the centerfield fence.

Rounding out the game, Bird picked up the pitching from Arioto and got the save with two shutout innings.

The Stompers' winning run continued with their third game of the day against the Mississippi Magic. With confident offensive play by Kelley Sweeney, who went 3-3 with two RBIs, and Romero's 2-3 and two RBI's, the team took the 3-0 win.

Moving on to play a fourth game in the same day, the Stompers went up against the topped-ranked Alabama team, the CSX Express. Throne led the offense with two singles in three at bats and two RBIs.

Solid defense from the outfield left by Wolf was key as the Express sent a number of balls outfield, while the infield was held down by Jones and Morgan up the middle.

With this last victory, the Stompers were one of six teams who battled for the championship title. They faced a well-rested Arizona Suncats, who played two games the preceding day compared to the Stompers' four.

Down 2-0, Quesada ripped a ball to the fence for a triple to bring in base runners Romero and Weisser and tie the score.

The Suncats fought back vigorously, loading the bases and scoring three runs.

While pitcher Varady, Bird's relief, held the Suncats scoreless after that three-run inning, the Stompers could not match their opponents' runs for a win and were eliminated in game play.

Including this national tournament's fifth place position, the team finished the summer schedule with three tournament wins and runner up in the Hall of Fame. Ballistic U-11 and U-14 teams struggle in Summer Classic

Ballistic Under 11 and Under 14 teams struggled to stay alive at the Ballistic Summer Classic was held last weekend.

Ballistic U-11 started on a high note, claiming a 4-0 victory against the Marin Dynamite, but suffered three losses, for an overall 1-3 tourney win record.

Ballistic dominated play in the first half by 2-0, with scoring led by Dane Schaffar and Colton Portela.

Marin came out strong in the second half, but Ballistic weathered the storm and padded their lead with goals by Nandor Krause and Damian Martinez.

In the second game, Ballistic faced a formidable challenge against the Santa Cruz Breakers White. The Breakers proved a tough opponent, skilled at passing and support play, easily scoring two goals before half time.

To their credit, Ballistic matched their opponents in the second period and could have pulled a goal back, but for a missed penalty kick.

A Ballistic defensive lapse led to a third and final Santa Cruz goal, with the game ending with Breakers' leading 3-0.

Hopes were high going into the contest with San Juan, but a sluggish Ballistic start gave their opponents an early lead 1-0.

Goalkeeper Michael Viebeck's aggressive efforts kept the score at 1-0 at the break.

In the second half, San Juan stepped up the pressure, scoring twice on excellent finishes.

Consolation came for Ballistic in the form of Schaffar's goal just before the end of play, but San Juan emerged victors 3-1. The Ballistic line-up finished off the tournament with a game against the DeAnza Force Blue, who proved to be much too powerful a team with Ballistic falling behind 4-0 before half time.

Coming out in the second half, Damian Martinez raised hopes for a come back with two, but DeAnza answered each with a goal of their own. The final score was 6-2.

The Ballistic United Under 14 boys also had a tough run in the Classic last weekend, winning only one match versus the Union City United with a score of 5-1.

Dillon Mullaney lead Ballistic with two goals, Kenny Hunt added a goal and an assist; Chris Lee was assisted by Trevor Dawon; and George Mayer was assisted by Shawn Daut.

Ballistic had a strong game versus Ceres Earthquakes, taking an early lead with a score by George Mayer assisted by Stefan Rabrenovich. The game ended in a 2-1 loss.

Ballistic lost to DeAnza Force 3-0 and to DVSC 1-0.

Mark Gusha had a strong showing in goals for Ballistic. Rage U-15 takes division title

After more than 100 minutes of soccer, and an amazing 28 penalty kicks, a tie-breaking goal sent the Pleasanton Rage Under 15 Division III squad home with the 2004 Union City "It's A Kick Classic" title last weekend.

Facing with San Carlos Avalanche, Valerie Rycerski unleashed a bullet to the left of the keeper that broke the 2-2 deadlock, giving the Rage girls the 3-2 lead to win the game.

Early on in the tightly matched game, Pleasanton got a 1-0 lead with the Ashley Royer's relentless play. Royer passed to Megan Gomez who converted for the score. After falling behind 2-1, the Rage rallied and a minute and a half into stoppage time, Pleasanton connected. Brooke Silva started the action deep in her own end, getting the ball to Jamie Thurman who cleared down the center across midfield.

Megan Gomez punched the ball through, where she and Alicia Fraticelli chased after it. Both arrived at the same time and Fraticelli took control of the ball, wheeled, and hit a rocket over the goalie's head to knot the game and send it into overtime.

LeeAnn Meyer made an outstanding save in overtime to preserve the tie and send the match to penalty kicks.

Pleasanton won the coin flip and went second in the penalty kick period. Shooter after shooter matched each other good and bad for 13 consecutive rounds until Rycerski's goal sent Pleasanton home happy.

In other game play that was not as closely matched as the score indicated, the Rage won the tourney opener 2-0 dominating over the Santa Cruz Jaws.

The first goal came at the 14-minute mark when Royer lifted a perfect lob over the goalie's head into the net. Pleasanton capped the scoring six minutes later when Gomez used her speed to beat the defense to the ball. Her shot deflected back to Rycerski at the top of the box.

Rycerski collected the garbage and went to the left side for the goal. In the final game on Saturday, the Rage girls claimed a 5-0 victory over the Castro Valley Extreme.

Katie Farthing assisted Gomez on the first tally and the second goal was an instant replay of the first. Only eight minutes later Pleasanton scored again. Silva took a corner from the right side and hit the ball into the middle of the box where it was deflected to Angie Macaulay at the top of the box in middle.

Macaulay went over the top into the right-hand corner for the 3-0 lead, and Fraticelli intercepted the attempted clear for the fourth goal at 16:30.

With time running down in the first half, the Rage sliced up the Santa Cruz defense with 10 consecutive passes, leading to the final goal of the game.

Thurman got the final pass in the middle of the box and ripped a shot to the goalie's right for the score.

Thurman scored a pair of goals and nearly had a hat trick, while Rycerski also dealt a pair in Pleasanton's 5-0 romp over the South San Jose Chargers.

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