Fountain Valley coaches and players meet after Thursday’s game at Harvard Park. (PHOTOS: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
Fountain Valley’s Pony Bronco 12-and-under team was productive at the plate Thursday evening and also got some decent pitching to defeat Santa Ana 16-8 in the opening round of the sectional tournament at Harvard Park in Irvine.
Fountain Valley moves on to face Los Alamitos, which had a bye, Friday at 5 p.m. on field one at Harvard Park. Six teams are in the tournament.
To see additional photos, click on the first picture:
Fountain Valley banged out 12 hits and took advantage of numerous errors by Santa Ana to capture the win.
Fountain Valley scored seven unanswered runs to break the game open a tie game early. Santa Ana battled until the end scoring a run in the bottom of the seventh and final inning on an RBI single by Omar Carrillo, which drove in Rhino Ruiz, who led off with a single.
“It was a total team effort,” said Fountain Valley Manager Kristopher Packwood. “We had six pitchers who went in today and had a lot of really tough at bats late for our guys, put up runs in every single inning except one. We were really consistent at the plate, the pitchers threw strikes and the defense made plays.”
Ryker Morledge started on the mound for Fountain Valley. Kaden Fortman, Noah Gough, Wyatt Middleton, Austin Okos and Jaxson Parr also pitched.
Among the offensive stars for FV were leadoff hitter Maui Sherman, who singled to open the game, stole second and came around to score on an error. Sherman scored three runs and had four steals.
Catcher Zachary Wiesner had a solid game behind the plate and also scored four runs and had two hits and an RBI, Parr had two hits and scored three runs and Jacob Stoecker had three hits, walked once and scored three runs and had four steals.
Fountain Valley led 2-0 after the first half inning, but Santa Ana responded with a run in the bottom of the first inning. Jayden Hernandez doubled and scored on an RBI single by Elizor Sandoval. In the second inning, Gio Vallin walked and scored on a wild pitch to tie the game.
But Fountain Valley answered with two runs in the top of the third inning to take a 4-2 lead. Fortman had an RBI single and later scored on an RBI groundout by Okos.
Fountain Valley then used four hits, a walk, two walks and two errors to score five runs in the fourth inning to move ahead 9-2. Santa Ana scored three runs in the bottom of the inning, one coming when Gabriel Cano reached on a fielder’s choice to drive in a run.
But Fountain Valley scored four more runs in the the fifth inning, with two coming home on a single by Middleton.
Santa Ana tried to battle back scoring two runs in the sixth and one more in the seventh, but could not complete the comeback. Santa Ana will try to stay alive in the double elimination tournament with a game Saturday at 9 a.m. at Harvard Park field one.
The tournament champion moves on to the regionals next week.
There are two Fountain Valley teams in the tournament. The other Fountain Valley team met Tustin in the second game Thursday night.
The tournament, hosted by Irvine Pony Baseball, continues through Sunday.
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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