Porterville wins District 34 Mccoy strikes out eight for win
Fundamentals, trust and Mike Trout were all the Porterville 10-and-under Little League Allstars needed to win the District 34 Championships in Lemoore Wednesday evening.
Backed by an outstanding pitching performance from ace Brody Mccoy, Porterville defeated Lemoore 5-3 in a comeback victory started by Lewis Green and Mccoy in the top of the third.
Down 1-0 after allowing a run in the bottom of the first, Porterville got things going with Green stealing home on a passed ball to tie the score 1-1. Backto-back walks put Fayt Cerda and Valentin Nuñez on base and caused a pitching change but a hard-rolling shot to Lemoore’s shortstop off the bat of Ethan Enriquez brought in a run and gave Porterville a 2-1 lead. In the next at-bat, Mccoy smacked an Rbi-double to left field and put his team up 3-1.
Mccoy went 2-for-3 with an RBI at the plate and said that all he was thinking about was, “What would Mike Trout do?”
“Our coach was telling us about Mike Trout and I just stepped in thinking of what Mike Trout would do and then came in and hit,” Mccoy said. Porterville manager, Tyson Gibson said that he wanted the boys to stay positive and when they were feeling down about something to think about what, Trout — the center fielder for Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Angels — would do.
“Sometimes they need speeches from coaches or parents or adults and we told them to think and act like they were Mike Trout,” Gibson said. “‘What would Mike Trout do in this situation?’ Whether it was defensively or at the plate or even in the dugout when you’re trying to be a leader and pick up your team. Mike Trout is one of the best, if not the best, player in Major League Baseball and if they can think about something like that instead of something negative or an error, then we want them thinking in that direction.”
Porterville tacked on two more runs in the top of the fifth with an Enriquez-rbi and a bases-loaded Rbi-walk to Gleesin Franco. Lemoore got one run back in the bottom of the fifth and then again in the sixth. Lemoore had a chance to take the lead in the sixth after Enriquez, who came in for Mccoy, walked two batters back-to-back and loaded up the bases but Enriquez struckout the next two for the win.
“The plan all along was for Brody to come in and get to 75 pitches,” Porterville manager Tyson Gibson said. “I talked to my team to get him a couple of runs early, they did and I think it calmed his nerves a little bit. He was going smooth through that game and he finished strong and then Ethan came in and closed it out for him.”
Mccoy was a force on the mound going 5 1/3 innings with eight strikeouts. He gave up just three runs — two earned — on five hits and two walks.
“I think we all did amazing,” Mccoy said. “I don’t think I just won the game, I think we all worked hard to win this game.”
One other top performer for Porterville was Cerda who went 2-for-3 with a double and a walk.
“I told them they worked for this,” Gibson said he told his team after the game. “The fundamental things that we taught them to come out here and do is what they did [to win] this tournament. They fought hard and dug deep and came through one game at a time. We don’t look past one game at a time and usually we tell them don’t look past more than one pitch down the line.”
Porterville will host another tournament at a time and date to be decided.
9u: Porterville falls to Lemoore The Porterville Little League All-stars team of players nine-and-under had the bats to get the win in Wednesday’s winor-go home game but their pitching suffered and Porterville fell 8-7 to Lemoore in the District 34 Championship game in Lemoore..
Porterville jumped out to a 3-0 lead with an RBI from Rolando Quinones II and a bases clearing two-run RBI from Ryan Hernandez in the top of the first but surrendered a run in the bottom of the first to Lemoore. In the bottom of the second, Lemoore took a 4-3 lead after Porterville walked five batters — three of which brought in runs due to the bases being loaded.
Porterville bounced right back in the top of the third with a basesclearing, three-run Rbidouble from Hernandez to take a 6-4 lead. But in the bottom of the inning Lemoore scored two runs to tie the game at six then another run in the fourth to retake the lead. Porterville answered with another run on a fielder’s choice for the tie the top of the fifth but another run from Lemoore in the bottom of the fifth sealed the home team’s win.
Throughout the game Porterville fans and coaches showed frustration towards the umpires due to a number of questionable calls and an ever-changing strike zone, as well as the Lemoore coaches, who had an umpire kick a Porterville coach and bat girl out of the dugout. Lemoore’s coach and the umpire said it was against the rules to have a non-uniformed bat girl and more than three coaches in the dugout.
After the game Porterville’s manager, Ryan Pavone told his players, “Good game, whether you got robbed or not.”