Sectional Tournament Game 1: Yorba Hills 13 LVLL 3

In a scorcher up in Fullerton, the Lakewood Village 11/12's ran up against their best competition of the year, battled hard, but ultimately succumbed to a team that played better baseball. LVLL twice started an inning for Yorba Hills with errors and had five overall, which just will not get it done. Mondesi Blanchard homered in defeat, Jake Elzinga had a couple of hits, and David Rivera had a couple of hits also. Six Village pitchers chipped in today, and really pitched well enough to earn a better fate. Better luck next time, and next time comes quick: tomorrow (Sunday) at Fullerton Sports Complex, 4pm versus the La Palma Continental All Stars.

As an aside to the game today, it would've been really nice to get to play some tougher teams before this game. All year, and including league play for the all stars, it has been a succession of blowouts, weak pitching, poor defense. Not good baseball. When the team took on Long Beach, it was a good challenge, and they came through, but it was only Mondesi and Ian pitching against Long Beach, which is certainly good strategy, but it doesn't necessarily help the other pitchers become battle-hardened. And that was the case all year long as the guys faced few guys as good as the Yorba Hills All Stars' worst player. I would imagine that at Yorba Hills, there were several players that did not make the all star team that were darned good players and that games during their league play were daunting frequently. Meanwhile, the Dodgers outscored their competition 281-43, which means, on average, the other teams facing most of our all stars scored less than 2 runs every game.

So, the point is, I do believe that our guys would have benefited greatly from some exhibitions against good teams. Heck, they benefited from this game. It was very clear on the field that the way our guys played WILL NOT CUT IT. Every single pitch has to be focused on with laser-like intensity, and the fundamentals have to be followed to the proverbial 'T'. It was fun playing against a team that was basically arrogant and thought they were above us. It would've been more fun to show them what's what.