District 62 Tournament of Champions: Gut check

Bryce Alderton

COSTA MESA - When the going gets tough, Austin Bagby seems to

shine.

And shine he did with the sun Saturday as the Costa Mesa American

Little League’s 9-10 year-old Yankees’ pitcher didn’t fizzle under

pressure, striking out the side in both the fifth and sixth innings, to

hold off the surging Costa Mesa National Little League Dodgers, 3-2, to

help the Yankees (15-5) advance to the semifinals of the District 62

Tournament of Champions Monday at 5 p.m. at Costa Mesa High.

Bagby struck out the final batter of the game with the tying and

winning runs on third and second, after the Dodgers (17-7) had scored a

run on Joshua Erno’s single to plate Billy DiGirolamo, who had also

reached on a single.

Yankee players swarmed together to form a circle and hopped

up-and-down briefly to celebrate their hard-fought victory. Bagby took

off his hat and looked skyward, exhaling as if in relief.

“I’m confident in my pitching,” said Yankee Manager Phil Bagby after

the game. “(Austin Bagby) pulled through. It’s almost that he performs

better under pressure.”

Bagby struck out two Dodgers after DiGirolamo and right fielder Daniel

Degree opened the sixth with singles.

In the fifth, Bagby was in a similar predicament, walking Preston

Schow and Daniel Derieg with one out before striking out the next two

batters to finish the inning. Bagby finished with eight strikeouts,

allowing two walks, six hits and one run (unearned).

He was also involved in one of two controversial plays.

With no outs in the top of the fourth, with Matt Mello and Tyler Muzzy

reaching base safely on singles, Bagby hit a 1-1 pitch on the ground to

Dodgers’ shortstop Erno.

Erno threw home to catcher Coleman Brown, who tried to tag-out the

sliding Muzzy, but the ball caromed off Brown’s glove and rolled toward

the Yankees first-base dugout.

Muzzy was safe and home plate umpire Ken Kobylka also ruled Mello

safe, because Kobylka said the ball rolled into the concrete area of the

dugout causing a “dead ball,” in which all runners advance two bases from

the point of the throw. Mello was at second when Bagby hit the

groundball.

Dodger Manager Clint Brown watched the play unfold from the third-base

dugout and has a different angle.

“It was rolling in the dirt when (a Yankees player) came up and

touched it,” Brown said. “They cannot gain an advantage on a mistake they

made. But he’s a great ump and I have a great deal of respect for him. He

made 99.9% of the other calls correctly, he just missed one we needed.

That’s just baseball, those things happen. Next time the call will go our

way.”

The other controversial call went the Dodgers way.

In the fifth, the Yankees’ Roland Wood, who had doubled and stolen a

base in the inning, tagged from third on Dylan Gravelle’s fly ball to the

Dodgers’ left fielder. Brown handled the throw at catcher as Wood

stumbled head-first into home plate. Wood was ruled out because, “there

are no head-first slides into a base in Little League,” Kobylka said.

“No matter how he does it, he did it, period,” Kobylka told a

questioning Phil Bagby.

The Yankees staked an early 1-0 lead in the third as Joseph Blackwell

hit a looper over the head of a backpedaling Erno at third base.

Shortstop DiGirolamo ran to back up Erno in short left field. He reached

out to try and cradle the falling ball, but the ball careened off his

forearm, allowing Joshua Bowman to score.

But DiGirolamo more than made up for the play he almost made in the

third, as he was on the receiving end of two sparkling defensive plays in

the second.

On two consecutive hits, one by Kyle Myres and Wood, DiGirolamo tagged

out both runners trying to stretch singles into doubles. Right fielder

Degree threw the first runner out from right as lightning struck the very

next batter. Center fielder Preston Schow hustled to grab the ball hit

over his head after it rolled to the fence. Schow picked up the ball and

threw it to DiGirolamo covering second and he made the tag on the sliding

runner.

Wood finished 2 for 2 with a single and a double. Muzzy singled and

scored a run as did Mello. Myres went 1 for 2 while Blackwell singled for

an RBI, scoring Bowman, for the Yankees.

Chris Gute pitched the first three innings for the Yankees, walking

three, allowing no hits and no runs while striking out six.

Degree singled twice and scored a run for the Dodgers, while Erno went

2 for 3 with two RBIs and DiGirolamo singled and scored a run in the

sixth.

Eusebio Castillo pitched the first three innings for the Dodgers,

allowing one run (unearned) on three hits, striking out one and walking

none. Mickelson relieved Castillo for the final three innings, allowing

two runs on three hits, walking none and striking out three.