Season ends for Alpine baseball All-stars Season ends for Alpine baseball All-stars (August 08, 2001)

**All-stars one run short of winning NorCal title

By Keith Peters

It was a long drive home from the Fresno area for member of the Alpine West Menlo Little League all-stars, their families and friends. Three hours to rehash the difference between continuing a dream or ending it.

Despite that 13-game postseason win streak and the fact the team went further into tournament play than any Alpine team in history, those associated with the club will remember what happened Wednesday night, August 1, in the Fresno suburb of Selma.

After forcing a challenge championship game with a 5-1 win over unbeaten Los Gatos earlier in the day, Alpine rode two home runs by Robby Salomon to a 3-1 lead and carried that margin into the bottom of the sixth in the finals of the Northern California tournament.

Simply put, Alpine was three outs away from advancing to the Western States Regional in San Bernardino _ the final stop before the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. And Los Gatos was three outs away from going home with a doubleheader loss.

"Unfortunately," said Alpine manager Dave Denier, "the wheels came off in the sixth."

Did they ever. A walk and two errors later, it was 3-2. After an intentional walk to load the bases, a hanging curve turned into an RBI single. Suddenly, the game was tied.

At that point, Alpine starting pitcher Danny Stienstra was emotionally and physically spent. Four games in three days can do that to a pre-teenager. So in came Joe Cain to relieve with the bases loaded and no out.

"We wanted a ground ball," Denier said. "And we got a ground ball. Unfortunately, it was just wide of Robby (Salomon) at third."

In came the winning run in the 4-3 heartbreaking loss. End of season. End of the dream for Alpine.

"That's baseball," Denier said Thursday morning before hitting the road for his three-hour drive home. "All good things come to an end. . . . You can't complain too much when you get this far. We were the second-best team in Northern California."

Alpine looked like the best team after bouncing back from a 2-1 loss to Los Gatos on Monday to beat Alameda on Tuesday, 6-2, as Salomon blasted two doubles and a three-run homer to help Matt Connor to win his sixth game in the postseason.

That effort forced a rematch Wednesday with Los Gatos, which needed to be beaten twice. It almost happened.

Alpine strung together 10 hits, four by Stienstra, and got a five-hit, nine-strikeout complete-game pitching performance by Salomon in the 5-1 victory.

Alpine went into the challenge game brimming with confidence. After all, the team had gone further than any Alpine all-star team in history and had matched the Palo Alto American squad that reached the NorCal finals in 1995.

Everything again went Alpine's way as Salomon again led the way with solo homers in the first and sixth and Stienstra pitched great for five innings. He finished with a three-hitter as Los Gatos managed just four hits. That last one, of course, was a killer.

"I don't think there was anything I would have changed," Denier said of the game and the postseason. "We were fundamentally the best team in all the tournaments. The pitching was superb. The kids were just great. This is the best any Alpine team has ever done.

"Everyone who came up to us after the game said we were the best team," Denier continued. "But sometimes the best teams don't always go on."

Keith Peters is sports editor of the Almanac's sister newspaper, the Palo Alto Weekly.