For the second year in a row, Santa Clara Briarwood and Sunnyvale Metro Little League have come together to create a combo All-Star Team. In the summer of 2025, Sunnyvale Metro had three players join Briarwood’s 11U squad. Flash forward a year, and five Metro players are now competing alongside Briarwood players for the 12U team, the famous Little League age group that culminates in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Penn.
Over the past 10-15 years, there have been rumblings within the community about whether it made sense for the two Santa Clara Little Leagues to combine for a better shot at having a Santa Clara league make it all the way to Williamsport.
Over the past 10 years, the 2017 Westside team that featured Jarren Advincula is the furthest a Santa Clara Little League team has advanced in the 12U tournament. That squad finished just shy of advancing to the NorCal tournament.
For now, the two Santa Clara leagues remain independent, but starting in 2025, Briarwood has lent a helping hand to Metro players who were simply in need of a place to play.
“This merger with Metro wasn’t geared towards gaining a competitive advantage, it was more just bringing our communities together,” chimed Briarwood President Kyle Madej. “Metro only had five All-Star-caliber twelve-year-olds, and they didn’t have a place to play; they were not going to have a team. But we had played them all year long, they are our next-door neighbors, so we put in this combo request, which is not an easy process. It took about two months to get approved, and it’s given the five Metro kids a place to play.”
“We’re really happy with the combo teams we have been able to put together with Briarwood,” remarked Metro President Josephine Choi. “As a whole, Metro has been a smaller league, and last year didn’t have that many 12- or 11-year-olds on our teams. We did have a full team, but Kyle [Madej] has been a great partner and resource for us.
“He reached out and said, ‘Hey we have a few spots on our 11U and a few spots on our 12U team, do you want to partner up?’ and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah.’ I reached out to some of the families and said, ‘Hey there is this opportunity, do you want to continue playing, do your kids want to keep playing?’, and they were all really excited.”
The Briarwood and Metro 12U combo All-Star team is currently playing in the round robin or pool play for District 44. They opened the tournament with a loss against Los Altos, but a win over Campbell in the second game of pool play would put the squad potentially in position to advance to the final four of District 44, the double-elimination bracket tournament. For the Metro All Stars, though, win or lose, these kids and their families are just happy to have an All-Star season, period.
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