Minors fall in final
Porterville Minors finish second in tourney
The Porterville Little League Minors All-stars season came to an end with a 5-0 loss to Lemoore in the District 34 Championship game on Friday evening at Burnham Smith Park in Corcoran.
The Porterville Little League Minors Allstars season came to an end with a 5-0 loss to Lemoore in the District 34 Championship game on Friday evening at Burnham Smith Park in Corcoran.
The loss was softened by a spontaneous water balloon fight thanks to Justin Green. A friend to manager Pedro Nunez’s family, Green brought two big ice chests full of water balloons for the 10-yearolds to play with.
“I just didn’t want any of the kids to feel sad after the loss,” said Green. He added that he was prepared to give the water balloons to Lemoore if they would’ve been the losing team.
Porterville fell behind early in the game after giving up two runs to Lemoore in the first inning. Down 2-0, Porterville gave up three more runs in the fifth inning.
The lefty, Aedon Dowdy, started for Porterville and Lemoore’s five runs were scored during his outing including one on a passed ball. Dowdy also gave up four hits, one walk
and struck out one.
Gio Perez relieved Dowdy in the third inning and gave up no runs. Over the last four innings, he gave up just three hits and struck out three batters.
Defensively, Porterville struggled and had four errors one of which resulted in the second run of the game. However they did have a double play in the top of the fifth. Perez and his infielders also made good stops to get outs and slow Lemoore’s momentum.
On offense, Porterville could not get their bats going for nearly the entire game. Their only base runners came from Xavier Aguilera who drew a lead-off walk in the first inning and Cade Correa who had a lead-off double that went deep into left field in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Lemoore’s ace, Caleb Rico, pitched the entire six-inning shutout. He finished with nine strikeouts, one walk and gave up only one hit.
This was Porterville’s third time playing Lemoore in the doubleelimination championship tournament. On June 25, Lemoore beat Porterville 15-4 but on Thursday, it was Porterville who was victorious in a 9-7 win.
“The boys did great,” said coach Nunez. “They started off kind of shaky at the first game. We played Lemoore in the first game, they gave us a good beating. They came back, played them a second time [and] we got them. They came together as a team.”
Between those two games, Porterville defeated Visalia West 21-4 on Monday, shutout Visalia East 11-0 on Tuesday and beat Exeter 6-2 on Wednesday.
“These boys are young,” said Nunez. “They’re just having fun. Once they started having fun, they started coming together and it was good.”
The team was coached by Nunez while AJ Watts, Josh Flowers and Jesse Correa.