Youth Scene: La Sirena captures LBLL AA title
The Laguna Beach Little League AA Championship game Tuesday came down to a meeting between rivals La Sirena Grill and Javier’s
La Sirena jumped out to 5-0 lead in the top of the first inning and never let up, expanding its advantage to 11-3 heading into the fourth before ultimately prevailing, 16-6, to win the postseason tournament title.
La Sirena once again was led by the outstanding starting pitching of Cade Anderton (3 2/3 innings, five strikeouts, one walk, three runs) and the stellar fielding of its entire team, limiting Javier’s tremendous hitters to three runs. Jackson Baldwin came in to finish the game going 1 1/3 innings and throwing more 60% of his pitches for strikes.
Many of La Sirena’s players made key plays in the field to shut down the offensive attack of Javier’s including Ben Dawson, Oliver Rounaghi, Zade Harrison and Redmond Chesley.
On offense, La Sirena got key contributions from Ryan Smith who had a hit and reached base in each of his three plate appearances to continue his hot hitting, and Dawson who doubled, drove in three runs and reached base in each of his four trips to the plate.
Javier’s had some nice highlights including a first inning blast by Mason Herr that resulted in a double, and a third inning home run down the right field line by Hudson Saunders. Herr was also solid on the mound going 2 1/3 innings and giving up only four runs.
Javier’s played hard throughout and made some excellent plays in the field including two double plays, one being an unassisted double play by Logan Pointon.
La Sirena reached the division final by taking a 12-7 semifinal victory March 14 from McKenna Audi. As has often been the case, La Sirena relied on the strong pitching of Anderton and Baldwin as well as the stellar fielding from its defense which included two stellar plays by Luke Fetzer, one in left field and one at catcher.
La Sirena was led on offense by the hitting of Ben Dawson, who broke the game open with a three-run triple in the first. Ryan Smith and Jackson Lawsky were also key contributors both going one for one with a single and a walk. Both have come on strong offensively during the postseason.
McKenna Audi was led by the solid pitching of Camden Dowers and Micah Chavez as well as the hitting of Chavez (double), Lucas McKibben (hit, run), Ethan Saunders (hit, RBI) and Morgan Clark (hit, run).
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In other tournament action:
AAA Division
UPS 10, Lumberyard 2: UPS rode the stellar pitching of JD Dix, Luke Anderton, Aidan McDennon, Kai Gillies and Lucas Jablon to a semifinal victory Monday (May 19) over Lumberyard.
Sam Schineller opened the scoring for UPS with a three-run home run in the first inning, and UPS never looked back.
The win sent UPS to Wednesday’s championship series against McKenna BMW which was one win away from the division title. The score wasn’t available at press time.
UPS, which has one loss in the tournament, has to defeat McKenna BMW twice to win the division championship.
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