World Series Day 3: Four teams remain
American Legion World Series (ALWS) games on Sunday experienced rain delays, as well as scoreless and shorter innings. Games 9 and 10 played seven innings in an effort to stay ahead of schedule from all the time lost by rain delays. Game 11 was cut short due to rain and will start again at 1 p.m. (EDT) today. It too will play seven innings.
Game 11: New Orleans, 6; Brooklawn, N.J., 5
Monday's game schedule:
Game 12: Omaha, Neb., vs. Brooklawn, N.J. (5 p.m. EDT)
Game 13: Bellevue, Wash., vs. New Orleans (8 p.m. EDT)
Game 8: Brooklawn, N.J., 3; Bellevue, Wash., 2
Saturday night’s postponement of Game 8 due to rain got under way Sunday before noon. And the battle for the winners’ bracket was claimed after 10 innings by Brooklawn Post 72.
Brooklawn and Bellevue remained tied 1-1 for three straight innings until Brooklawn took the lead 2-1 heading into the top of the ninth with Bellevue up to bat. Bellevue designated hitter Clayton Huber grounded into a double play but still sent Nate Anderson across home plate, tying the score 2-2. Brooklawn remained scoreless in the bottom of the ninth to send the game into overtime.
Brooklawn relief pitcher Jeff Paglione shut Bellevue down in the top of the 10th inning. Then, left fielder Pat Kane solidified his team’s 3-2 victory after he scored on a throwing error by Bellevue catcher Jimmy Sinatro.
New Jersey (57-3) had four hits and zero errors. Washington (37-14) had seven hits and two errors.
Game 9: Omaha, Neb., 8; Florence, S.C., 2
With all the comebacks the 2012 ALWS has seen, Omaha’s five-run lead after the second inning didn’t mean Florence couldn’t strike back and be saved from elimination. Florence tried to mount a comeback in the sixth inning, but it couldn’t overcome Omaha’s 8-2 victory. Omaha will meet Brooklawn, N.J., on Monday.
“The way we have been playing this Series, you never really know if they (other team) are going to come back or not,” said Omaha left fielder T.J. Wood. “But we have been in elimination games in three big tournaments this year, and we’ve won all of them so we know what position we were in.”
Short stop Jon Hechtner gave Omaha its first two runs in the top of the second inning, then two RBIs and a stolen base gave Omaha a 5-0 lead. By the top of the fourth inning, Florence remained scoreless and Omaha put two more runs on the board before the rain delay came.
“Once we got those five runs (in the second inning), we got the momentum going and we knew if we just kept adding every few innings we would be fine,” Wood said. “And we got three more runs up there so that helped.”
After the hour-long rain break, Omaha scored once more to carry an 8-0 lead heading into the bottom of the sixth inning — that’s when Florence ended its scoreless streak. Florence first baseman Akeem Bostick and designated hitter CJ Hopkins each got an RBI single.
Omaha left handed pitcher Mason Raburn gave up eight hits, three walks and struck out two in seven innings of work. The two teams combined had 18 stolen bases — 16 of those were Omaha’s.
Nebraska (51-9) had nine hits and three errors. South Carolina (41-7) had eight hits and two errors.
Game 10: Bellevue, Wash., 4; Lakewood, Calif., 1
Bellevue got back to its winning ways, eliminating Lakewood from the World Series. Their battle for a win was in the pitching — right handed pitcher Brandon Mahovlich pitched a no-hitter until the bottom of the fifth inning when Lakewood second baseman Manny Jefferson got a hit.
“I just wanted to go out there and clear my fastball and establish that early in the game,” Mahovlich said. “I ended up spotting them (fastballs) pretty well and getting them out there (in the game) pretty quickly. And it’s always a good thing to play tomorrow, especially when we came with a loss this morning. To come back with a win in this game means a lot.”
Mahovlich threw 123 pitches with 82 strikes in a seven-inning game, all while giving up only four hits and striking out seven batters. Lakewood’s single run came in the last inning from Tyler McClure who grounded out to the short stop for an RBI.
Runs by Bellevue came from RBIs powered by Matt Sinatro, Nate Anderson, Jimmy Sinatro and Jake Bakamus.
Washington (38-14) had seven hits and one error. California (24-8) had four hits and zero errors.
Read the Legion World Series Journal by sports writer Carl Hennell for further details into the above games.