CMALL Majors: Tigers close out Yankees

Tony Altobelli

COSTA MESA - It’s rather difficult to be branded with the “dynasty”

label at the Little League level, but for the Costa Mesa American Little

League Major Division Tigers, the brand is hot and ready to go.

The Tigers won their third division championship in four years following

Thursday’s 5-3 win over the Yankees at Costa Mesa High, improving their

four-year record to an incredible 93-13.

“It starts when we draft the 10-year-olds,” Tigers Manager Cliff

Duernberger said. “From there, we pound in the fundamentals at practice

over and over until they become as automatic as possible. That was the

difference today. We made the big defensive plays and had no errors.”

A complete-game four-hitter by pitcher Jamie Tinnion didn’t hurt either.

The righty struck out eight and blanked the Yanks for the first five

innings before a late rally broke up the shutout.

“He was stellar out there,” Duernberger said. “He had good control of his

pitches and even when he fell behind, he battled back and made the big

pitch. Now he’s just got to learn not to shake me off on my breaking ball

signals.”

Tigers’ slugger Andrew Sanford, despite the Yankees trying not to give

him anything good to hit, got the Tigers on the board in the top of the

second inning. He ripped a double to left before scoring on a fielder’s

choice by Nick Peterson.

“He’s so big and crowds the plate, that even when they throw outside, he

can still reach out and hit it,” Duernberger said.

Tinnion helped his own cause in the third with a solo home run to center

field, giving the Tigers a 2-0 lead.

In the fourth, the Tigers took advantage of some Yankee pitching problems

and turned a hit, four walks and a hit batsman into three runs, making it

5-0.

That would turn out to be enough for Tinnion, who allowed only two hits

and had only one runner reach third base the first five innings.

The Yanks refused to go away quietly in the sixth. With a runner on first

and two outs, Jordan Kalke smashed a two-run home run to center, cutting

the lead to, 5-2.

Yankees cleanup hitter Branden Hoffman followed with a towering shot to

left, making it, 5-3.

From there, Tinnion retired the next batter and the game was over.

Kalke, who was hit hard by the Tigers during the regular season, threw 2

1/3 scoreless innings of relief, striking out three.

“He came in and did a great job for us,” Yankees Manager Stein Cozad

said. “He came in with the bases loaded and managed to forget about the

runners on base and threw well. He threw real hard out there for us and

hit his spots well.”

Both teams will move on to the District 62 Tournament of Champions, which

begin next week.