The O.C. Sun Devils won their third tournament this past week as they took the crown in the Pico Boys Baseball Last Chance Tournament by beating the La Verne Extreme 14-3. The boys opened up play on Saturday with a 13-3 victory over Smith Park, followed by a 13-5 dismantling of host Pico Boys Blue. Hunter Cope hit for the “cycle” on Saturday with a home run against Smith Park and a single, a double and a triple against Pico Boys Blue.
On Sunday the Devils had to win their first game of the day to earn a berth in the championship game, but the La Verne Extreme had other ideas as they beat the Devils 3-2 behind an excellent pitching performance by the Extreme’s Sean Powell. This sent the Devils on a 10-hour odyssey where they had to play two more games just to get a shot at La Verne in the championship. From noon on Sunday until 10ish that evening, the boys played four baseball games (including a triple-header), outscoring their opponents 42 to 8. The Devils are nothing if not resilient; loaded with pitchers the Devils thrive where other teams run out of pitching depth. The Devils got a short break before kicking off what would become a triple-header by defeating the SGV Titans 12-0. Second basemen Will Rudy turned a beautiful double play in the first inning. This victory led to a rematch with Pico Boys Blue. The results of the rematch were much the same as Jakob Ho went 4-for-4 with a double and Connor O’Brien hit a 2-run walk off homerun to complete the mercy.
This win put the Devils into the championship game against La Verne. La Verne took an early 2-0 lead in the first inning as the heat and length of the day caught up to the Devils and they made some errors in the field. The Devils scored a run of their own in the top of the second inning to close the gap, but things began to look dicey before Trevor Klein came to the mound for a key 3 2/3 innings of work wherein he allowed only one earned run as the Devils exploded for 11 runs behind his stout pitching effort. Keying the offensive explosion was Anthony Nemeth going 3-for-4 with 4 RBIs.
Highlights of the weekend include Nemeth going 10-for-15 with 10 RBIs at the plate and pitching 4 innings while allowing no earned runs; Jakob Ho pitching 4 2/3 innings while allowing no earned runs and going 10-for-18 at the plate; Jake Lappin hitting 8-for-11 with 6 RBIs and Hunter Cope going 10-for-17 with 10 RBIs; Klein pitching 7 2/3 innings over the course of the tournament, including the 3 2/3 in the championship game that shut down La Verne; catcher Aidan Klimon manning the dish for 22 of 28 innings, including 14 innings on Sunday while throwing out 3 potential base stealers; and while there are no special statistics to highlight Rudy’s defensive efforts, he made play after play at second base all weekend long. Outfielders Nathan te Pas and Jackson LoBianco also contributed with key at bats and plays in the field.
