Baseball: CMALL gets wiped out

Joseph Boo

HUNTINGTON BEACH - Knowing that Ocean View’s Little League Majors

baseball team is good is one thing, but finding out firsthand is another

matter.

The Costa Mesa American Little League team found out just how tough

Ocean View can be, falling, 10-0, in four innings in a District 62

All-Star Tournament semifinal game at Huntington Valley Little League

field Wednesday evening.

With the loss, Costa Mesa has to play Huntington Valley today at 5

p.m., in an elimination game. The winner of that game then has the

unenviable task of trying to knock off Ocean View twice.

Costa Mesa didn’t help its cause. Ocean View only needed seven hits to

score all its runs. Its first two runs came on a wild pitch and a passed

ball, respectively. Ocean View’s third run was unearned, as the runner

reached base on an error.

“We made too many mistakes to really be effective,” Costa Mesa Manager

Cliff Duernberger said.

After Ocean View took a 4-0 lead in the third, it broke the gates wide

open. A three-run homer by Trey Valbuena put Costa Mesa down, 7-0. Three

Ocean View runs in the fourth inning ended the game on a mercy rule.

“They’re a good hitting team,” Duernberger said. “We just tried to

throw our junk ball up there to their hitters and hope the ball would

bounce our way. But it didn’t.”

On the other side, Ocean View pitcher Dallas Walters was cruising. He

struck out 10 batters in four innings. Costa Mesa didn’t get a hit until

Evan Hunter got a two-out single in the third. Jamie Tinnion followed

with a single to give Costa Mesa a scoring threat, but Walters got a

strikeout looking to get out of the jam.

“He throws hard,” Duernberger said. “He doesn’t have good control, but

we swung too freely, at too many high pitches, to help him out. And I

thought the strike zone was too wide, but we benefited from that too.”

Costa Mesa’s other two runners both reached scoring position. Tinnion

walked in the first and reached second on a wild pitch. Jordan Kalke

walked in the second, made it to second on a wild pitch, but was thrown

out when he tried for third. A groundout by Andrew Sanford was the only

other time a CMALL at-bat did not result in a strikeout.