Members of the Placentia team are back row (left to right) Manager Kris Green, Darius Selway, Andrew Green, Mason Shackleton, John Burdge, Tucker Hunnicutt, Logan Fraser, Manager Rene Ayala and Coach Eric Ayala; front row, Ty Ayala, Kemuel Zhang, Jacob Vasquez, Justin Karg, Logan Sylvester and Bryan Serna. (Photos courtesy Placentia Pony Baseball)
A 10-and-under Pony baseball team from Placentia is off to Youngsville, Louisiana this week to play in the Pony World Series.
The team will be representing Placentia Pony Baseball.
To see the slide show, please click on the first photo
“We are a select team called the Outlaws that has been together since Jan. 1,” said one of the managers, Rene Ayala. “As a select team, we play other select teams throughout Orange County and play in tournaments on weekends. Our regular season went from March 3 to May 17.”
The team’s all-star season started on Memorial Day weekend in the Irvine Memorial Day Tournament. The squad went 4-1 and lost to SC Heat from Santa Clarita in the championship game.
The team then competed in the OC Elite Tournament where it went 2-2-1.
“Our biggest challenge came when we played in the USSSA World Series vs. some of the best travel ball teams in the West,” Ayala said. “We posted a 4-3 record but got better as a team. All these tournaments were warm up tournaments for the Pony Sanction All-Star Tournament.”
The team started out in the district tournament in Cypress and went 3-0 to move on to the regional tournament the following weekend in Irvine.
In the regional tournament, Placentia went 2-0 and advanced into the Super Regional in Corona, where it went 4-0, defeating French Valley, Simi Valley, South Bay and East Long Beach.
The squad then moved on to the Zone championships in Los Alamitos, where it went 4-1, defeating Loomis, La Jolla, Maui ande Los Alamitos.
“Our first loss came against Maui,” Ayala said. “We lost 6-4 putting us one game away from elimination. We played Maui again the following day and we won 1-0 behind a no-hit gem thrown by our ace Bryan Serna. With the win against Maui it put us in the championship game vs. Los Alamitos with a chance to go to the Pony 10-and-under World Series. We beat Los Al 12-2 making us the West Zone Champs.”
Teams in the World Series are Santo Domingo Dominican Republic, Manila Philippines, The Bronx, Mexicali, Chicago, Texas, Youngsville and Placentia. Placentia will open Friday night vs. the Phillipines.
The players will be thinking of one of their favorite players, former Los Angeles Angels pitching star Tyler Skaggs, Ayala said.
“When we started the Pony tournament on July 5 it was a couple of days after Tyler Skaggs had passed away,” Ayala said. “Myself and the other two coaches are huge Angels fans along with 90 percent of our team, three Dodger fans.
“So we adopted Tyler’s saying ‘We’re Nasty’ after each win. I believe it’s carried us this far (for) motivation along with our pre-game prayer. Hopefully it carries us for four more wins and a championship.”
The team has established a Go Fund me account to help with travel costs, Ayala said.
The other manager is Kris Green and the coach is Eric Ayala.
If you have youth sports news to share this summer please send to Editor Tim Burt: timburt@ocsportszone.com and we welcome pictures too.
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