The O.C. Sun Devils again proved their resilience in their
sixth tournament victory in seven tries this summer. Coach Mark Cresse's crew
came back from deficits of 5-2 and 6-5 to beat the SoCal Owls 7-6 and extend
their championship streak to four in a row. This is the second USSSA tournament
that the boys have won as a 9U team.
The Devils beat the Corona Cougars 5-4 and the Dirtbags Baseball Academy 14-0 in the preliminary round to take the top seed in the gold bracket. On Sunday, the Devils beat the Livermore Heat 15-4 and the Corona Cougars 16-3 to secure their spot in the championship game. The SoCal Owls also went 4-0 over preliminary and bracket play, but the Devils beat them on tiebreakers for the top seed and the Owls were forced to play the Northridge Sharks. In a tightly contested game, the Owls edged the Sharks 8-7 to earn a berth in the championship.
The Owls laid into a shell-shocked Devils defense in the top of the first inning. Three singles, an intentional walk, an error and seven stolen bases led to five runs against the normally stout Devils defense. Shockingly, three of the stolen bases were of home as the Devils looked out of sorts and routine run-downs and pickoffs became adventures. Pitcher Hunter Cope and the rest of the defense caught their breath, settled down and retired the next three batters, but the damage was done, and the Devils would be chasing the Owls the rest of the game. Despite having loaded the bases for three consecutive batters, the Devils were only able to push across two in the bottom of the first to narrow the gap to 5-2.
The second inning was dominated by defense as both the Owls
and the Devils stepped up defensively to hold the other team scoreless and the
third proved to be much the same with the Devils picking up a run after Cope
doubled to lead off the inning and scored on Jake Lappin's ground out to cut
the lead to 5-2.
Since the first inning, the Devils had only allowed three base runners and the fourth inning they tightened up even further as Cope struck out the first batter and the Devils retired the next two batters for their first one-two-three inning. The bottom of the fourth did not begin on a promising note for the Devils as their first two batters were retired, but then Jakob Ho hit a single and Connor O'Brien reached on an error that also allowed Ho to score. This brought up Cope again who hammered another double to drive in O'Brien and tie the ballgame. Unfortunately the Owls held and got the third out before the Devils could score the go ahead run.
Trevor Klein took the mound for the Devils in the fifth inning and was able to continue the scoreless innings streak, unfortunately, despite having three runners reach safely in the bottom of the fifth, the Devils were unable to push across the go-ahead run. After retiring the first two batters in the top of the sixth, Klein gave up successive singles and the Owls were able to go ahead 6-5 on a fielding error, but O'Brien made a great play on a hard hit ball to the left side of the infield to get the final out and bring the Devils top of the order up to bat. Unfortunately, Ho grounded out for the first out. O'Brien hit a line drive single and advanced to second on the centerfielder's error. Cope popped up to second to ring up the second out. Klein came up with two outs and the tournament on the line. After a first pitch ball, Klein missed badly on the next two pitches, but it only takes one pitch to turn a game around and Klein laced the next ball right up the middle to drive in the game tying run. Lappin followed this with a single to centerfield to push the winning run to second base. This brought up Aidan Klimon who took a 1-0 fastball deep to centerfield for a walk-off double.
This comeback victory ran the Devil's record to 32-4 and provides a big boost of confidence as the boys head off to Vegas this weekend for the Triple Crown Las Vegas Nationals.
