D-Rays fall one rally short

FOUNTAIN VALLEY ? The Costa Mesa American Little League Majors Division Devil Rays spent most of the game trying to rebound from one pitch.

That pitch resulted in a grand slam for Ocean View in the second inning.

The Devil Rays finally battled back to tie the score and force extra innings.

But the Ocean View White Sox scored three runs in the top of the seventh and hung on for an 8-5 victory in the District 62 Tournament of Champions quarterfinals Saturday at Mile Square Park.

The loss ended the Devil Rays’ season.

The Devil Rays’ Abel Huerta scored in the first inning after being caught off third base on a ground ball to the pitcher. Huerta stayed in a rundown, until an errant throw to third allowed him to score and tie the score, 1-1.

But Ocean View’s Casey Hayes connected on the grand slam in the second inning, giving the White Sox a 5-1 lead.

Devil Rays Manager Ray Luna said he knew his team wasn’t out of it early, despite the score.

“They’re not quitters, that’s for sure,” Luna said. “We just starting hitting the ball like we knew we had to, to try to win the game.”

Martin Myszynski’s third-inning single to right scored Josh Stubblefield, who had led off the inning with a single of his own.

“Coach said ‘Keep on believing,’ and we just started coming back,” said Stubblefield, the Devil Rays’ second baseman who had two hits. “We didn’t give up, and we just kept on hitting and playing good defense.”

Myszynski stole second, advanced to third on an error and scored on a passed ball, cutting the deficit to 5-3.

Lewis walked, and eventually scored on Joseph Raus’ two-out single to center.

The Devil Rays stayed within a run until the fifth, when Myszynski led off with a hustle double to right. He took third on a wild pitch, and scored on another passed ball to tie the score, 5-5.

The rally wouldn’t have been possible without clutch pitching from Logan Benter, who threw four innings of shutout relief.

“I just tried to shut them out and not get them any hits,” Benter said. “We were hoping that we could get hits and come back, because we’ve done that a lot during the season.”

But when the game went extra innings, Costa Mesa had used up all of the eligible weekly innings for its 12-year-old pitchers. So, the Devil Rays were forced to go to the pen again.

“Going extra innings did affect us,” Luna said. “But all we needed was one more run, then we wouldn’t have had to go extra innings.”

Ocean View led off the seventh with three consecutive hits to score a run. A wild pitch scored another and the last run scored on an RBI groundout.

Myszynski and Benter strung together back-to-back one-out singles in the Devil Ray’s seventh, but Sox relief pitcher Hayes countered with back-to-back strikeouts to end the game.

Myszynski went four for four with a double to account for half the Devil Rays’ eight hits. He also scored two runs.

Stubblefield said he would miss playing for the close-knit Devil Rays, comprised mostly of players from Davis Elementary and a few from Kaiser.

“We had a good time,” Stubblefield said. “We really communicated well on the field.”

Also contributing for the Devil Rays were Steve Gutierrez, Jeff Duplex, Idren Luna, Dirk Hill, Ryan Weber and Shelby Detmers.