File photo – The Eel River All-Stars are 3-0 at their Section tournament.
A good weekend for the District 26 Little League All-Stars continued on Sunday at a couple of Section tournaments.
The Eel River 10-year-old All-Stars improved to 3-0 at their tournament in Clearlake, defeating Sutter Area 7-4 to qualify for a championship showdown on Tuesday night.
The young Eel River players will play either Westside Chico or Sutter Area, two teams they have already beaten in tournament play, and they need to win one of two games to advance to the NorCal State tournament.
The Redwood Empire 12-year-old All-Stars were also in action on Sunday and kept their season going with a second straight elimination game victory.
Since dropping their opening game of the tournament in Colusa, the RELL players have delivered with back-to-back wins, including a 16-5 win over Sutter Butte on Sunday.
After a 4-0 loss to Central Chico on Friday night, the Humboldt County champs have stepped up their game and they can advance to the championship round with a victory over Cottonwood on Monday night, with first pitch set for 7 p.m.
“Since being held scoreless in that first game, we’ve got the bats going,” said RELL manager Tyler Conley, whose team has racked up 26 runs over the past two games. “It was a good game for us (Sunday). It was a good all-around game for our bats.”
Treyce Conley, Charlie Armstrong and Carter Conrad set the tone at the plate, with all three of them hitting home runs.
“For us to be able to put up 16 runs against them was a statement,” the manager added.
Wesley Ask got the start on the mound and pitched well, according to his manager, with teammates Oliver Rivas, Mathew Plotz and Guido Satterlee all pitching in relief and each getting the job done.
Submitted photo – The Redwood Empire 12s
Oliver Yoder continued to make some noise at the plate, finishing with multiple hits for the second straight game, while Ask has been making his presence felt in more ways than one.
“Wesley Ask continues to get on base and find ways to score,” Tyler Conley said of the team’s leadoff batter.
The young Eel River All-Stars, meanwhile, have been perfect so far at their Section tournament and have a day off on Monday as they get for a big showdown on Tuesday night, with that game scheduled to start at 6.
On Sunday, they won for the third time in four days, and they succeeded with another good all-around team performance.
“It was a full team effort from top to bottom,” Eel River manager Erik Bess said. “We played very good small ball and had three successful bunts.”
That’s an impressive stat for such a young team, but this is a group of players that has been rising to the challenge all summer.
Truen Cobb was one of the big story’s of the game on Sunday.
The young Eel River player saw his first action of the summer on the mound and delivered with a good performance.
“Truen hasn’t got any innings for us, but he’s a kid we know can pitch and he came out and he did his job,” Bess said of the tall, hard-throwing lefty.
Jayce Fockaert also impressed in relief, as did Kesler Lake and Carter Bess, the latter of whom struck out the final batter to help see his team over the finish line.
All four Eel River pitchers got plenty of offensive support, with the team racking up 11 hits in the win.
Carter Bess had one of the hot bats for the game and finished 2-for-3 with three RBIs.
Drake Bohn and Gio Lanza each also impressed at the plate and both were 2-for-3, with Bohn scoring a pair of runs.
