A game that began close, quickly unraveled.
In the Little League Majors City Championship game on Friday night, Peak Performance defeated Goetz Brothers 13-3 to become the uncontested champion of the Alpine/West Menlo and Menlo-Atherton Little Leagues.
Michael Tinsley led Peak Performance, champions of the Alpine/West Menlo Little League, with a strong showing both on the pitcher’s mound and at the plate. Tinsley recovered from a rough first inning, in which he conceded a three-run home run to Goetz Brothers’ Erik Amundson, to pitch four scoreless innings.
After the first inning, Tinsley did not surrender another hit, and finished his outing with 12 strikeouts. “My curveball was most effective,” said Tinsley, who throws, in addition to the curveball, a 70 mile-per-hour fastball and a changeup.
Tinsley also provided an offensive spark for Peak Performance, furthering his own cause by going 5-5 from the plate, including two doubles, and scoring four runs. Tinsley also proved unstoppable on the base paths, accumulating four stolen bases.
Said Tinsley of what accounted for his success: “I don’t know. It was just one of my days.”
However, Tinsley had by no means the only clutch game for Peak Performance. The offense came from variety of sources. Chris Lee went 2-2 with two RBIs and locked up the game for Peak Performance by pitching a perfect sixth inning. Charlie Cain provided two RBIs along with a 2-4 performance at the plate, and Royce Branning drove in four runs, including a clutch double in the fifth inning that broke the game open for Peak Performance.
Nevertheless, despite the plethora of offensive success for Peak Performance, the city championship game was, for the first three innings, an arms race of who could accumulate more runs faster. After Peak Performance jumped out to a 2-0 lead in to the top of the first, Goetz Brothers came back undeterred, scoring three runs on Amundson’s home run.
However, Goetz Brothers’ 3-2 lead was not to last long, as Peak Performance came right back in the top of the second to retake the lead 4-3 on an RBI single by Cain and a bases-loaded walk to Branning.
Assistant coach Randy Tinsley was very proud of his team’s ability to bounce back from their early setback. “This team always battles back and didn’t lose any confidence. They showed a lot of heart,” he said.
“The home run really riled us all up ’cause we didn’t want to lose 3-2,” said Michael Tinsley.
For Goetz Brothers, the M-A Little League champions, Amundson led the team. In addition to his three-run shot over the centerfield wall in the first inning, Amundsen pitched one and two-thirds innings of relief, allowing only one run while getting his team out of the disaster of Peak’s seven-run fifth inning.
Keenan Carr went one for two at the plate and scored a run in the first inning. He also pitched one and a third innings in relief, getting Goetz Brothers out of jam in the fourth inning.
Peak Performance’s victory in the city championship game was their second city championship in three years.
Sportswriter Colin Becht will be a senior at Menlo School in the fall.
