Baseball: NBLL Dodgers lose a tough one

Joseph Boo

MISSION VIEJO - There wasn’t a whole lot the Newport Beach Little

League Majors Dodgers had left to give. They played a near-errorless

baseball game, but it wasn’t enough in a 4-3 loss to the Laguna Hills

Dodgers Tuesday in a District 55 Tournament of Champions first-round game

at Curtis Park.

The NBLL Dodgers, regular-season league champions, shut down most of

their Laguna Hills counterparts, except for one Sean Pellerin.

Pellerin hit a one-out double in the bottom of the fifth and he came

across for the winning run on a single by Travis Fincham.

Three innings before, Pellerin drove in his team’s third run with a

triple.

Except for the four runs, NBLL Dodger southpaw Shaun Mohler was solid on

the mound. He only gave up four hits in the affair, with a whopping eight

strikeouts in five innings.

The NBLL Dodgers committed one lone error, but the LHLL Dodgers got at

least one run in every inning they had a base runner.

“We played great defense and Sean pitched a great game,” NBLL Dodgers

Manager Jeff Bloom said. “It was just the little things here and there

that hurt us.”

The NBLL Dodgers took a 2-0 lead in the first. Matt Raiger, who had three

of his team’s four hits, scored the game’s first run on a passed ball.

Spencer Brown, the only 10-year-old and the youngest player on the team,

brought Mohler home on an RBI groundout.

Unlike their Newport Beach counterparts, the LHLL Dodgers were mistake

prone on the field, but they fought through four errors. Their pitcher,

Mitchell McCarthy, didn’t walk a batter to keep his team out of trouble.

He had five strikeouts in a complete-game victory.

THE LHLL Dodgers tied the game in their half of the first, then took a

3-2 lead in the second off Pellerin’s triple.

The NBLL Dodgers tied the game in the third when Mohler singled in

Raiger, who reached on a long double that almost bounced over the

center-field fence.

Newport had a chance to tie the contest in the sixth. Brown reached

second on an error with no outs, but he was stranded there.

“We played well,” Bloom said. “A 4-3 Little League score meant it was a

great game.”

Raiger went 3 for 3 with two runs and he had two assists at second base.

Mohler had the NBLL Dodgers’ only other hit with his RBI single. He was 1

for 3.

The RBI groundout was the only time Brown didn’t reach base. Besides the

error in the sixth, he reached on a fielder’s choice in the third. He

also had three assists at shortstop.

Kelsey Chase was the only other NBLL Dodger to reach base. He got to

first on an error in the second. Left fielder Nick Pike caught a towering

fly ball in the second to end a Laguna Hills scoring threat.

This is the second year in a row the NBLL Dodgers won their regular

season and lost in the TOC by a run. Last year, they dropped a tough 2-1

decision in the first round.