Despite a slow start from its high-scoring offense, the Verde Valley Little League All-Stars 8-9-10 team won the District 10 championship, 9-7, over Prescott on Saturday, June 23, at Riverfront Youth Fields.
Verde Valley powered its way to its first championship in recent memory, going undefeated through four games while averaging 14¾ runs per game. Now the team will travel to the Arizona Little League State Tournament, starting July 12 at Freedom Park in Tucson.
“It feels great, especially going undefeated I couldn’t tell you more, this group of kids is incredible, they’re awesome,” second-year Verde Valley All-Stars coach Brandon Wacker said. “[The championship game] was a lot more exciting, I’m still shaking. It shouldn’t have been. They stuck in, battled hard, and Prescott has a great ball club.
“It was good because all of the games in Tucson are going to be a lot like this, so it was good for them to experience it and know how they need to keep their heads up.”
Unlike the first matchup between them, Verde Valley had to battle from the firs
t to the sixth and final inning to secure the win. In the team’s second game of the tournament at Riverfront, site of all of the tournament’s games, on June 19, Verde Valley beat Prescott 18-3 in three innings.
On Saturday, Prescott went ahead in the first inning and would not relinquish a hit, or a run, until the third. The visiting team turned a leadoff single into a run. Verde Valley’s Ethan Baird was hit by a pitch and reached third in the home half of the first, but the inning ended with a strikeout.
Prescott, home to the first league in Arizona to join Little League back in 1950, doubled its lead in the second inning and struck out all three Verde Valley batters.
Julius Gonzalez, Verde Valley’s leadoff batter, recorded the team’s first hit to open the third. Gonzalez crossed home on a passed ball, as did Baird, who had walked after Gonzalez’s hit, to knot the score at 2-2.
Kaden Pusl recorded the team’s first RBI four batters later, followed up by Ricky Villalobos’ single that was lifted into left field to make it 4-2. Verde Valley’s offense began to wake from its slumber.
“Tonight was a very slow start. I’m not sure, I don’t know if they just got lax because of the wins [earlier in the tournament] they thought that it was going to be a breeze going into [Saturday’s game],” Wacker said. “Once they saw it wasn’t going to be, they finally turned it on about the third inning and they came alive.”
Prescott did not go away. Three walks resulted in a bases-loaded, zero out situation, and a passed ball gave the visitors another run. They tied the game while Verde Valley, who took third in last year’s tournament, engaged in a rundown at first base.
Verde Valley’s Derek Alvarez came in to replace Baird on the rubber, and recorded his first of seven strikeouts to end the inning. Baird finished with six punchouts.
In the fifth inning, the hosts’ offense found its stride.
The score stood at 4-4 until they put together a two-out rally and pushed five runs across. Zaiden Ballesteros, a Verde Valley substitute, walked in his first at-bat and reached second on substitute Brayden Walsworth’s sacrifice bunt.
Ballesteros reached third despite a pop up that fell to the Prescott third baseman. The would-be baserunning error turned into the go-ahead run as Gonzalez made hard contact twice before singling up the middle to score the run.
Baird followed with another RBI and the seventh run scored on a wild pitch. Alvarez, Verde Valley’s clean up hitter, roped a double down the left field line to plate the final two runs.
“We’ve done that the whole tournament. It seems like we’ve scored most of our runs with two outs,” Wacker said.
Prescott had just three outs to work with. In Little League, that kind of advantage is not safe, and it nearly was not enough.
A groundball to third base produced a pair of errors that put a Prescott runner at third with one out. A passed ball made it 9-5.
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Verde Valley Little League |
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1 Franky Ayala |
Later in the inning, Alvarez picked up his second strikeout of the inning, but still had traffic at second and third. Another passed ball made it 9-6. Alvarez mishandled the return throw from catcher Dawson Rice, and it was 9-7.
Two more balls that reached the backstop set up the game-tying run at second base, but Alvarez sealed the win with a strikeout.
The champions opened the double-elimination tournament with a 14-5 win over Prescott Valley on June 18 before defeating Prescott for the first time. They beat Williams 18-8 on Thursday, June 21, to reach the championship game.
“Our defense made some incredible plays the whole tournament, but probably the better play at the plate,” Wacker said. “All 13 players hit the ball very well this year.”
