Coquitlam A's nab B.C. Sr. Little League crown
Coquitlam A's shortstop Tyler Yorko fields a grounder during the B.C. Senior (14-16) Little League baseball championships at Blue Mountain Park.
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Updated: July 23, 2009 6:58 PM
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Former baseball great Yogi Berra once lamented, “It ain’t over til it’s over.” Coquitlam A’s provided iron-clad proof Tuesday that’s indeed true.
The host A’s rallied from a 4-2 deficit with two out in their final at-bats to beat the North Vancouver Red Sox 6-4 in the B.C. Senior (14-16) Little League championships at sun-soaked Blue Mountain Park.
The victory allowed the A’s to become the first Coquitlam Little League team ever to win the Senior provincials and advanced them to the Canadian national finals Aug. 8-15 in St. John, N.B.
It also marked their third win in as many tries in the four-team double-knockout tournament, allowing the A’s to avoid a prospective second do-or-die “final” game Wednesday night with the Red Sox, who entered Tuesday’s contest having already lost once.
“We didn’t want to get down to a one-game situation, where anything can happen,” said A’s manager Bruce Michael. “We were hitting the ball hard but we were just hitting it at people. You can’t get frustrated when that happens... you just keep rolling, keep the faith and eventually good things will happen.”
The Red Sox were actually a pitch away from victory when Coquitlam loaded the bases in the top of the seventh inning, after the A’s trailed 4-0 after three innings and gradually managed to narrow the gap to 4-2.
Coquitlam made it 4-3 on a wild pitch, then went up 5-4 when Jorgan Tennant’s routine grounder squirted through the North Van second baseman’s legs into centre field and scored two more runs.
After Coquitlam made it 6-4 on Brady Veltin’s RBI single, North Van put two runners on base in their final at-bats but failed to cash them in, due largely to the superb, complete-game pitching by Brian Choi.
Each team had eight hits but North Van stranded 11 base runners in the contest, testimony to Choi’s ability to shut the door when it mattered and his fielders for backing him up at critical junctures of the game.
Fittingly, Choi ended the game by striking out the final North Van batter looking at a wicked breaking ball.
“We were pretty confident we were going to win it but, yeah, I was pretty nervous,” Choi said after. “It was great I had my team out there supporting me.”
Said Michael of Choi’s sparkling performance: “I bet if you look at the scoresheet he threw all strikes except for maybe 10 pitches. He’s our go-to guy as far as throwing strikes goes.”
Tyler Yorko was the A’s offensive star in the game, launching a solo home run and a triple to rally his team’s comeback.
Veltin had a single and a double, while Benny Maeda slapped a pair of singles for the victors, who won all three of their games at provincials.
Red Sox coach Michael Blundell said the manner in which his team lost was doubly difficult to take but paid tribute to both teams.
“It was a tough game for us... a real heart-breaker for the kids,” Blundell said. “To their credit, they came back. That’s the thing about baseball... you leave men on base and these things can come back and bite you. And unfortunately that happened to us tonight.”
BASELINES: Coquitlam A’s advanced to the final of the B.C. Junior (12-13) Little League provincial tournament via 4-1 victory Tuesday over rival Whalley in North Vancouver. The unbeaten A’s were set to face either Whalley or White Rock last night (Thursday, after The News’ deadline) in the first of two prospective finals in the double-knockout event. The winner goes on to nationals Aug. 6-13 in Langley.
