CMNLL again resilient

HUNTINGTON BEACH — Confidence is as contagious as home-run hitting for the Costa Mesa National Little League Majors Division All-Star team.

Both attributes seem to be blossoming game by game at the District 62 tournament at LeBard Park.

Dante Capoccia hit a pair of home runs Tuesday and Matt Jarmacz added another as Costa Mesa kept its title hopes alive, edging Huntington Valley, 5-4.

The teams will play again today at 5:30 p.m. at LeBard Park, the winner moving on to the district finals that begin Monday.

Huntington Valley had beaten Costa Mesa, 12-4, in the tournament opener on Saturday to push Mesa into the loser’s bracket. Since then, Costa Mesa has strung together three consecutive elimination-game wins, although Jarmacz was still thinking about Monday’s 4-3 victory against host Seaview.

“We’ve definitely proven ourselves as a team,” said Jarmacz, who pitched 5 2/3 innings Tuesday, striking out three and allowing three runs. He helped cool a Huntington Valley team that had scored 12 runs in each of its first two wins.

“Seaview said that we were a one-man team, then we beat them in the last inning,” Jarmacz said. “They said it to us before the game we played them, then we hit three home runs off of them. We shut them up.”

The “one man,” Capoccia, did help Costa Mesa considerably Tuesday. He homered with two outs in the first inning, a solo shot to left on an 0-2 pitch to give his team an early lead.

“I didn’t know it was going to go out,” said Capoccia, the CMNLL regular-season home run leader who has also homered in seven of his last eight postseason games. “It felt like a pop-up.”

Costa Mesa added another run in the second inning, when Dylan Reyes scored on Levi Stillman’s RBI single. Huntington Valley’s Matt Tavakoli hit a solo homer in the bottom of the second, but Jarmacz added to the Costa Mesa lead with a solo shot to right-center in the third.

Then came Capoccia’s second home run, far from a pop-up on the first pitch he saw in the fifth inning. The fastball went well over the fence just to the left of the 200-foot sign in straightaway center. The Huntington Valley center fielder didn’t even turn around.

“We just missed our spots on some of their good hitters, like Dante,” Huntington Valley Manager Steve Bogard said. “Last time, [Costa Mesa] didn’t really put the ball in play, and this time they did.”

But Bogard’s club narrowed its deficit to 4-3 in the sixth, on Jake Weiser’s two-out, two-RBI double. Huntington Valley nearly added another run, when Weiser advanced to third on a wild pitch. The ball took a bad hop and went into the Costa Mesa dugout, which left Huntington Valley arguing that Weiser should be awarded another base.

Costa Mesa Manager Rob Stillman, however, stated his case that a runner could only advance a single base on a single play — in this case, the wild pitch. The home-plate umpire agreed, Weiser was sent back to third and Jarmacz got out of the jam.

Costa Mesa added an insurance run in the sixth, when Ryan West doubled to leadoff the inning. West advanced to third on Levi Stillman’s single, scoring when Stillman intentionally got caught heading to second.

“I was hoping they would throw down,” Rob Stillman said. “I told Levi to get in a pickle if they throw down.”

Mesa would need the insurance run. Jarmacz was lifted with two outs in the sixth, having reached his 85-pitch limit. Huntington Valley immediately responded with a solo home run by pitcher Sean O’Toole. A walk and wild pitch put the tying run in scoring position, but Costa Mesa reliever Jake Stone got out of the jam by inducing a grounder to second.

Rob Stillman said the plan today is for Capoccia to go 85 pitches.

“He looked good [Monday] and only pitched 45 pitches,” Stillman said. “We’re going to go with who brought you to the dance, and see how it plays out.”

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or by e-mail at matthew.szabo@latimes.com.