Colin Creason of St. Hedwig steals second base as Kyle Mills of Placentia tries to apply the tag. (Photos courtesy Harrison Zhang, For OC Sports Zone)
Placentia’s 12-and-under Pony Bronco all-stars showed no quit Thursday night in the opening round of the regional tournament at Hicks Canyon Park in Irvine.
To see the slide show, please click on the first photo
Placentia came up a bit short, falling to St. Hedwig 10-9 in a wild game that took about 2 hours, 30 minutes to complete.
“Our boys have heart, they didn’t give up, they always believed they could do it and they showed it that last inning,” said Placentia Coach Troy Mills. “All 10 of those kids are never going to give up no matter what.”
It was almost a comeback to remember for the all-stars who trailed 10-2 going into the bottom of the seventh and final inning and had runners on second and third with two outs.
Julian Rodriguez had a two run double to drive in two runs to make it 10-8. Then Aiden Jeske scored on a wild pitch to cut the lead to one. Rodriguez then stole third and Kyle Mills was hit by a pitch and stole second.
Holden Mallock then grounded out on a close play at first to end the game.
Also in the seventh, Jeske had a two-run single and Daniel Troncale an RBI double. Mills and Javier Carrillo also had singles.
St. Hedwig had some excellent hitting of its own and also took advantage of defensive lapses by Placentia to build a 6-1 lead after four innings.
“We had 15 errors, and you’re not going to win too many games with that,” Coach Mills said. “It snowballed on us, but we didn’t give up. We’re a good team, and I thought we held our own. We’re not done yet. It just made the task a little harder so we will come and battle them tomorrow.”
St. Hedwig scored four runs in the second inning. Chris Canzerini had an RBI single, Ryan McKemy drove in a run on a squeeze bunt single and Colin Creason delivered an RBI single.
In the third inning, Canzerino singled, stole second and scored on a wild pitch to put St. Hedwig ahead 5-0.
Placentia scored a run in the the fourth and one in the fifth to cut the lead to 8-2 but St. Hedwig added two more in the sixth to take a 10-2 lead.
The seven-team double elimination tournament, hosted by Irvine Pony Baseball, continues on Saturday. Placentia will need to win its game at 10:15 a.m. Saturday. St. Hedwig advances into a 12:45 p.m. game Saturday.
RELATED: Garden Grove starts fast and tops Irvine 12-2
-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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