Season Ends for PPBA All-Stars

Mustang 10U and Bronco 12U Baseball Squads Host Pony Section Playoffs at Field of Dreams

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

The Pacific Palisades Baseball Association’s Bronco 12U All-Stars played hard down to the final out Saturday evening, but when the dust settled on Field 1 at the Field of Dreams, the sun set on a remarkable summer for the red, white and blue.

All summer long the team tested itself against the strongest competition in Southern California in preparation for a deep run in the playoffs. Palisades mercied 11 opponents along the way, but this time it was given a taste of its own medicine, falling to rival Santa Monica 13-2 in six innings in an elimination game of the Pony Section tournament.

“We haven’t been on the losing end of too many of these,” said Palisades head coach Jim Ford, whose team defeated Santa Monica 13-9 in the finals of the Cheviot Memorial Classic on May 29. “We gave it our all, but they were really up for this one. We got them earlier in the season and today we just ran into a hot pitcher. We only had two guys with hits, which is hard to figure with our lineup. Good pitching beats good hitting every time.”

Christian Recendez, a 7th-grader at John Adams Middle School, allowed only four hits, all singles, with three strikeouts and brought the game to a sudden end with a grand slam home run over the center field fence. Palisades’ two runs were the fewest it scored in any game this season.

Palisades trailed 8-0 before Finn Johnson scored from third on Caden Abraham’s sacrifice fly in the fifth. In the sixth, Tommy Farmer slid under a tag at home to score on a single by Troy Winkenhower, but Santa Monica answered with five in the bottom half.

Hosting the eight-team bracket gave Ford and  assistants Daniel White and Dan Johnson confidence their squad would advance to this weekend’s Super Regionals in Whittier and Palisades seemed well on its way after hitting six home runs in last Thursday’s 22-8 rout of Pico Rivera.

Winkenhower and Rowan Jen each belted a pair of round-trippers while James Rockwell and Davis White each added one. Jen and Johnson each had four hits, Campbell Ford had two doubles and Palisades racked up 19 total hits. Abraham, Johnson, Sean Nugyen and Ford combined for nine strikeouts on the mound.

On Saturday morning, Palisades fell behind East Long Beach A by five runs in the first frame and that proved to be too big a deficit to overcome as the PPBA squad suffered an 8-5 setback.

Jen’s RBI single got Palisades on the scoreboard in the fourth. After Rockwell crashed into the right field fence while catching a fly ball to prevent a solo homer in the top of the fifth, Farmer blasted the first pitch he saw from reliever David Sayre over the center field fence to begin the bottom half. After Rockwell singled, Winkenhower launched a two-run shot far beyond the left field boundary to pull Palisades within 8-4. He added a solo homer, his team-high 16th of the summer, to close out the scoring in the seventh. Farmer went four-for-four at the plate and Jack Richman leaped in the air to rob East Long Beach of a run in front of the left field fence in the sixth inning.

Brennan Clark, Jake Grossman, Brendan Gardner and Julian Milner also contributed to Palisades’ success.

Coach Ford led the Dodgers to the PPBA Bronco championship in June and was proud of his 12U All-Star squad, which posted 22 victories, hit 52 homers and scored 256 runs in 29 contests, an average of 8.8 runs per game.

“We try to teach them to always put in the extra effort,” said  Ford, who will take the same group of boys to Cooperstown, New York, for the annual Dreams Tournament in August. “We had higher expectations, but this was a fun season and this is a team I’ll remember.”

The PPBA’s Mustang 10U All-Stars also hosted the Section tournament, but lost their first two in the double-elimination format to finish the season 7-9.

Friday night’s opener on Field 2 against Torrance American was tight all the way, with Palisades winding up on the short end of a 5-4 score.

Patrick Csiszar drew a bases-loaded walk to force home a run and another run scored on a single by Beckett Yi in the top of the first inning, but Torrance American answered with four runs in its half.

Jake McCaffrey singled with one out and scored on an error to pull Palisades within a run in the second. Torrance American added a run in the fifth, but Bo Gardner was awarded home on a balk in the sixth. Brett Yokomoto pitched into the fifth inning and Yi came on in relief to record the last two outs.

On Saturday, Palisades went head-to-head with East Long Beach A on Field 4 and was only able to muster two hits in a 10-0 defeat in four innings.

Gibson Pauley singled in the first inning and James Min singled in the second.

Rounding out Palisades’ resilient squad were Oliver Arenson, Logan Bailey, Ethan Seung, Max Miller, Foster Stockton, Jasper Hoegh-Guldberg, Kellan Ford and Henry Lawrence.

In June, the 10Us won the Silver Division of the Simi Youth Classic, beating Northside Oxnard 12-4 in the final. They then  participated in the Big League Dreams tournament in West Covina to sharpen up for the Pony playoffs.

Coaches Matthew Pauley, Jim Csiszar, Tim McCaffrey and  James Min enjoyed the summer and believe the future is bright with 13 of 15 players returning. Gardner is moving to Boulder, Colorado and Stockton is moving to West Virginia.

“I’m optimistic given who is coming back,” said Pauley, who coached the Mustang Yankees to first place in the regular season. “Substitution rules are almost like the Major Leagues. In two years these kids will be 12-year-olds going to Cooperstown.”

Torrance American and Wilmington made the 10U Super Region playoffs in San Marcos. East Long Beach A, Torrance American and Santa Monica qualified for the 12U Super Region tournament.