Tassajara Valley, Vacaville Central stay alive in NorCal tournament

Tassajara Valley's Beau Garrett hits a sacrifice fly to score a run during the fifth inning Tuesday night at Ruso Field in Watsonville. (Glenn Cravens/Register-Pajaronian)

WATSONVILLE — The Tassajara Valley Little League All-Star team played error-free baseball and pitched its way into the final four of the Northern California 10-11 Tournament at Ruso Field.

Tassajara Valley eliminated Almaden North 4-3 to advance to Wednesday’s losers bracket semifinals.

The boys in red got three runs in the bottom of the fifth. It needed needed all of them to get by.

Keaton Littlefield and Josh White each had RBI doubles, and Beau Garrett hit a sacrifice fly that brought home a run in the fifth inning. That padded Tassajara Valley’s lead to 4-0 going into the sixth inning.

Almaden North, which had 11 base runners before the sixth inning but couldn’t get any home, finally got on the board with its tournament life on the line.

Alex Kaneko and Matthew Unangst both worked a walk to start the inning. Up stepped Ryan Keit, who had to wait out a pitching change.

He wasted no time when the game resumed, sending a pitch into the night for a three-run home run, pulling Almaden North to within 4-3.

However, Keit was the last Almaden North batter to reach base.

Tassajara Valley got on the board in the second inning.

Dylan Lawlor hit a single to start it, stole second and took third on a passed ball. With one out, he came home on a grounder to give the boys in red a 1-0 lead.

The way Ryder Martin, Josh White, Jimmy Lewis and Alex VanSteenhouse were pitching, it appeared it was going to be enough.

Almaden North loaded up the bases twice, once in the first inning with no outs and once in the fifth inning with one out. Tassajara Valley pitched its way out of it both times.

• Vacaville Central 9, Turlock American 1: Quinlan Sweany had two hits, including a booming three-run home run to break the game open, and Vacaville Central bounced back from a loss 24 hours earlier.

Vacaville Central took the lead for good in the bottom of the second inning. With Adam Chadwick and pinch runner George Christison on base with two outs, Talon Abramowicz hit a home run to give Vacaville Central a 3-1 lead.

Vacaville Central dented the scoreboard in the third inning as well. Brandon Chalk (error), Noah McCoy (single) and McQuire (walk) loaded the bases. McQuire then hit a single to plate Chalk and McCoy. Sweany followed up with his home run.



For the complete article see the 07-26-2012 issue.

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