11-Under:
The 2nd Seed So Cal Outlaws went 2-0 on Saturday, but missed the 1st Seed position due to Runs Allowed. Consequently, they had to play an extra game on Sunday. They cruised through their quarterfinal and semifinal games, before reaching the Championship game and facing the OC Titans. The two teams met on Saturday, with the Outlaws coming out on top. Would this game repeat history?
The OC Titans entered Sunday as the 5th Seed. They upset the 4th Seed with a big win to advance to the semifinal. They found themselves pitted against the 1st Seed Harbor Area BBC. Harbor Area had only given up one run on Saturday, but were unable to repeat that on Sunday. The Titans put up 9 runs in a crucial upset to advance to the Championship game.
This brings us to the Titans and the Outlaws rematch. The Outlaws squeaked by the Titans on Saturday 8-7, but with the Titans pitching in full stride and bats on fire, they would have their work cut out for them. The Titans weren't ready to repeat history though. Holding the Outlaws to just 3 runs, they scored five runs, giving them the Championship and the upset.
12-Under:
The SGV Hustle program consistently turns out some of the best teams that play in our program. So when the 11-Under played up in the 12-Under division, you knew they were going to cause some problems for the older boys. Entering Sunday as the 2nd Seed, the found themselves in the Championship game against the 1st Seed Tustin Rampage.
SGV Hustle jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Then the pitchers found their grooves, and no one scored until the top of the fourth inning, when the Rampage scored 4 runs to given them a 4-1 lead. The Hustle struck back with 2 in the 5th, but found themselves down 5-3 heading into the bottom of the 6th inning. With three outs to go, and facing a new pitcher, they were able to find their bats, and score three runs, giving them the walk off win and 1st Place trophy.
14-Under:
More often than not, you expect to see two of the top seeds in the Championship game. Sometimes a lower seeded team upsets an upper seed, and that breaks the norm (and is usually what we write about). The 14-Under Playoffs were not one of those times, but they were however unique. This is due to the fact that the 2nd Seed Outlaws are in fact an 13-Under team.
A 9-Under team or an 11-Under team playing up is a challenge, just due to playing against older players, but the field sizes are the same for 9/10-Under and 11/12-Under. However, a 13-Under team playing up is greeted by a substantially bigger field as well as bigger, older, and stronger competitors.
That didn't scare the Outlaws though. Going 2-0 on Saturday, and only taking the 2nd Seed based on Run Differential, they advanced to the Championship game to face the only other undefeated team. The Dodger Rookies, had a very similar record to the Outlaws all the way through to the Championship, so you knew it was going to be a very close, very hard fought game.
The Dodgers jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the second inning, but the Outlaws answered back with 1 in the third. The Dodgers kept adding runs, and the Outlaws found themselves down 5-2 going into the bottom of the seventh. Not ready to go down without a fight, the Outlaws scored three runs to tie the game at 5-5, and force the game into extra innings. They were able to shut down the Dodger's bats in the top of the eighth before scoring the go ahead run in the bottom of the inning to give them a 6-5 victory.
Thank you to all the teams, players, parents and coaches who braved the cold last weekend to give us some awesome and exciting baseball. Here is a list of the Champions and Runner Ups.
See you on the fields
-AC
Find us on Facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment