SALINAS – A Hollister American Little League team is on the
verge of absconding with the District 9 11-12 Majors All-Stars
championship for the second straight year.
SALINAS – A Hollister American Little League team is on the verge of absconding with the District 9 11-12 Majors All-Stars championship for the second straight year. The 2003 version made a good impression of the 2002 version Wednesday at windy Salinas-Continental Field, tagging Soledad with a methodical 10-0 rout.
Steven Cabral slid into home with the tenth and final run in the bottom of the fourth on a Soledad throwing error, which halted the game due to the 10-run mercy rule.
Still, despite the relatively easy victory, Hollister American manager Steve Ferranti and his staff lectured on the finer points of the game long after his stars recorded their second shutout in as many games.
“We have a lot of things to work on,” said Ferranti. “We’re still not swinging the bats the way we can. We’re not stringing hits together yet.”
This is how scary this Hollister American team is. Three 11 year-olds – Trevor Gessell, Trevor Fabing and Kyle Zozaya – were slotted in the top three spots in the order Wednesday. Their combined line was 4-for-9 with two doubles, a homer, six RBI and five runs scored.
Zozaya’s three-run blast over the left field fence made it a fairly secure 6-0 lead in the second inning.
“I was nervous in my first game,” said Zozaya. “It felt good to hit that home run.”
Gessell and Fabing traded places with each other in the first innings with searing doubles to left field. Clean-up hitter Steven Cabral hit a deep home run foul then ripped an RBI single to score Fabing, who had advanced to third on a passed ball. Cabral nearly put one out in the fourth when he boomed a long single off the base of the right field fence.
Hollister American rang up three runs off a tired Guillermo Rodriguez in the third inning. Justin Terrill was hit by a pitch, then Devin Quintana singled to left. Alfonzo Reyes shot a single through the left side for an RBI.
Terrill pitched the first three innings for American and allowed just a first inning single to Soledad’s Darrell Sinclair. That was the only hit for Soledad, which left two baserunners on in the first and three in the third. Reyes walked Christian Zarco in the fourth, but Cabral threw out Zarco trying to steal second. Reyes whiffed the final two batters in the inning.
“We came out flat today,” said Soledad manager John Eddy. “Hollister was ready to play and we weren’t. We can’t make errors against a solid club like Hollister. We can play a lot better.”
Eddy and his boys have a chance to play better tonight when Soledad faces Hollister National at Continental Field at 5:30 p.m. The winner must still win two more games to make the championship round and three more games to take it all.
Needless to say, it’s a long haul through the loser’s bracket.
Not so for Hollister American, which is riding the wave of a first round bye. Hollister American plays tonight’s Continental-Salinas-Atlantic winner this Saturday at 10 a.m. at Continental Field. The winner moves into next Tuesday’s championship game at Ferrasci Field wielding a huge hammer.
An ‘if’ game will be played on Wednesday, also at Ferrasci.
Game notes: Reyes made the play of the game from his third base position in the third inning. With the bases loaded, fair-sized Kyle Pond hit a ground ball off the glove of Terrill. Pond would have been safe and a run would have scored, but Reyes quickly charged in to right behind pitcher’s mound to field the ball and throw out Pond….Cabral, who was behind the plate, was charged with an error in the third inning when he was ruled to have interfered with a swing of Alejandro Cruz.
Tourney and Little League notes: The Section 5 Tournament for the Majors will be hosted by North Valley LL and Eastridge LL of San Jose. The Division Tournament will be held in Rocklin, north of Sacramento. Rocklin is also the same site for the 9-10 Division Tournament. The Section 5 Tournament for the 9-10 stars is at Vets Park. Both Section tournaments begin on July 18. The Region for the Majors, as usual, is San Bernardino, while Cupertino is the host site for the 9-10 Regional Tournament, the final destination for the 9-10’s.
Soledad 000 0 – 0 1 2
Hol Am 243 1 – 10 9 2
Rodriguez, Estrada (4) and Chavez; Terrill, Reyes and Cabral. WP-Terrill. LP-Rodriguez. 2B – Gessell, Fabing (HA). HR – Zozaya (HA). 2 hits – Gessell, Cabral (HA). 3 RBI – Zozaya (HA). 2 RBI – Fabing (HA).
