Little League: Porterville Minors are District 34 champs
Porterville’s Little League Minors All-star team won the District 34 championship tournament on Tuesday with a 9-8 walk-off victory over Lemoore in Visalia on Tuesday.
With the win, the team made up of 10- and 11-year-olds advances to the California Section 7 championship tournament. Porterville will host the tournament from July 12-16 at Burton Ballfields, 2375 W. Morton Ave, Porterville.
In the bottom of the sixth inning and down one run, Ivan Arias scored on a passed ball to tie the game, 8-8. Jonathon Delgado followed Arias and scored the game-winning run on a passed ball as well.
“The team did great all the way around,” said Porterville head coach Robert Vargas. “Our offense set the tone from the beginning [and] throughout the games. And our defense just did amazing. I believe we had maybe one error in three games, so they did amazing playing with each other.”
In the circle at the start of the game was Porterville’s Jayson Castillo. He went four innings and allowed only two runs. He was relieved by Louie Torres, who pitched two innings and gave up six runs.
Behind the plate for the entire game was Delgado.
“He did amazing, he did very good,” said Vargas. On offense, Delgado also had a solo home run in the fourth inning, while David Zamora had one in the fifth.
In the first game of the double-elimination tournament on Saturday, Porterville beat Lemoore 6-3. They also defeated Exeter 11-1 on Sunday.
Castillo received the game ball on Saturday for his pitching as well as hitting.
“He pitched three shutout innings and also hit a 3-run home run on Saturday,” said Vargas.
There was no game ball handed out in Sunday’s rout of Exeter because “it was just a complete-team effort on that one” according to Vargas.
Helping Vargas coach were Benjamin Chavez, Jason Baxter and Russell Isom.
This was the Porterville Little League organizations’ third All-star championship win. Porterville’s Minor League team also defeated a team from Lemoore, 10-2, on Tuesday, while their Intermediate (50-70) team beat Sunnyside 5-4 on June 20.