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Sports

MB Senior All-Stars Slam N. Anaheim

The team advances to the Western Region Championship Tournament after boys pound North Anaheim 15-1. Deep pitching helps carry team.

RIVERSIDE – Manhattan Beach Senior All-Stars Manager Carlos Rojas said he liked his chances Sunday to clinch a berth in the Little League Senior Division Western Region Championship Tournament with Turner Conrad on the mound.

Conrad came through just as his manager expected. The tall right-hander held Anaheim North to just four hits and one unearned run over 5-2/3 innings to capture the Senior League California Division 3 Championship.

But after two nail-biters in the best-of-three series, Rojas could not have expected MB to pound Anaheim North pitching for 14 hits en route to a 15-1 shellacking at Reid Park.

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“Anaheim ran out of pitching,” Rojas said, explaining MB’s offensive explosion. “That’s baseball."

Little League rules limit the number of pitches a player can throw in a day, and also limits the number of times a pitcher can throw in a week, which can put a strain on a pitching staff in a three-game series.

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Pitching-rich MB had no such problem. Rojas said he and his coaches, Aaron Medina and Russ Kontos, filled in their 16-man roster with as many as nine experienced pitchers.

That’s how Rojas was able to save staff ace Conrad for Game 3, in the best-of-three series.

Contrast that with Anaheim, whose Game 3 starter Christian Lopez was rocked for four runs in the first inning and was pulled with just one out.

Well over six-feet tall and lean, Conrad kept Anaheim’s hitters on the heels using just one pitch.

“I pretty much threw fastballs all night,” said Conrad. “I think I only threw two or three change-ups.”

Conrad’s catcher on Sunday, Richard O’Reily, believes MB can reach the Little League Seniors national championship tournament for the second year in a row.

“As long as we play as a team and our pitching keeps up the way it has, we have a chance,” O’Reily said.

Conrad was still going strong when he reached his Little League mandated maximum pitch count with two outs in the fifth. Christian Reynolds relieved him, striking out three of the four batters he faced to close out the game.

Clean-up hitter Garrett Wells led MB’s 14-hit attack with a single, double and grand slam. After the game, Wells said his four-run shot in the seventh inning was something special.

“That’s the first time I’ve hit a home run over the fence in a game,” he said. “I was just looking for a pitch to drive and put good wood on it.”

Just about every MB hitter got into the act. Gregory Whitaker belted a three-run triple, driving in Conrad, Trent Hammond and Wells, as MB took a 4-0 lead in the first inning. Gregory French singled in a run in the fourth as MB extended its lead to 5-1.

Hammond singled in the first and belted a three-run triple that broke the game open in MB’s five-run sixth inning that made the score 10-1. Hammond also scored three runs.

Conrad cracked a double and a single and scored two times. David Odle stroked two singles and scored twice. Reily singled and scored. Kevin Lopez popped a single and scored a run.

The defending West Region champion Manhattan Beach Senior All-Stars have little time to bask in the glory. They return to action 3 p.m. Tuesday against the Oregon state champions in Ontario in the round-robin portion of the nine-team Little League Senior Division Western Region Championship Tournament.

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