EDH, Folsom American win in 10-11 All-Star tournament

Thursday night at Richards Field at Roseville Little League the semifinals of the District 54 championship bracket were set for the 10-11-year-old All-Stars. In the first game on the day, El Dorado Hills defeated Woodcreek, 9-7, in an exciting game that came down to the bottom of the sixth inning, while in the nightcap in a rematch of last year's 9-10 year old championship game, Folsom American rolled up Lakeside in a big 10-2 win, as they made notice that they will be a force in this tournament. The two winning teams, El Dorado Hills and Folsom American, will play at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday with the winner advancing to the championship round of the tournament. The losers, Woodcreek and Lakeside, drop down to the loser's bracket and play Friday, as Lakeside faces Roseville at 5 p.m. and Woodcreek playing Maidu at 7:30 p.m. in elimination games. The first game featured a crazy finish. While Woodcreek had six hits in the first five innings, they trailed 9-3 heading into their last at bats. Suddenly, everyone had a hot bat and found the right spots, as they equaled their total number of hits, as the first six batters reached base. At least two of those hits and maybe three were amazingly all within three inches of being foul balls down the right field line, but were instead fair, as the baseball gods were seemingly helping Woodcreek in its comeback. The leadoff hitter plays such an important role each inning and in the bottom of the sixth, Woodcreek's last batter was due up, Friedrich Steenblik, and he kick-started the Woodcreek engine with a leadoff double. If Steenblik makes at out, who knows, it could have been a one-two-three inning for El Dorado Hills pitcher George Bergamo. Bergamo had entered the game with one out in the fourth inning with his team in front 4-1 and allowed two inherited runners to score, but had an easy inning in the fifth, allowing only one hit. Now he was about to be up against it. Woodcreek leadoff hitter Connor Kelley followed with a triple to drive in Steenblik and Isaac Gray then singled him in to make the score 9-5. Carson Anderson and Micah Gomez followed with singles before Jack Bradley doubled in both runners to make the score 9-7 and chase Bergamo in favor of Logan Reichard. Reichard immediately got the first out of the inning with a strikeout before walking Luke Bergeron to load the bases and move the game-tying runner to second base. Hudson Whitehead then hit a ground ball to shortstop JJ Filippini, who had just moved from second to shortstop when Reichard came into pitch. Filippini stepped on second for the first out and threw to first base for the second out to end the game on bang-bang play. Woodcreek thought Whitehead was safe, El Dorado Hills hoped he was out and the umpire, the game's lone umpire behind the plate, made the out call. Leading El Dorado Hills offensively was Jake Tryer, who had two hits. Reichard walked twice and score two runs, while Filippini had one hit, scored twice and drove in two runs. Bergamo also had two RBIs, while Matt Gabbard and CJ Ard each drove in one run. Kelley, Gomez and Bradley each had two hits for Woodcreek, while Bradley had three RBIs and Gray had two. Kelley scored twice and knocked in a run, while Anderson and Steenblik scored two runs and Vander Ray also picked up an RBI. "We were scrappy for sure," El Dorado Hills Manager Jason Reichard said. "We work hard, and the kids played well." In the second game, Lakeside and Folsom American found themselves in a tight 2-2 game after four innings, but Folsom American scored five runs in the fifth and added three more in the top of the sixth to win going away, 10-2. Lakeside is the defending 9-10 All-Star champs who beat Folsom American in the championship game a year ago. Folsom American started the fifth inning off with a double off the bat of Charlie Juchinski, which chased Lakeside starter Joseph Long from the mound in favor of Rayyan Khan. Gunner Tolson greeted Khan with a double of his own; driving in what would be the game-winning RBI. A sacrifice bunt from Rouser Hightower moved Tolson to third and Madden Padilla then hit a fly ball to left field that the left fielder dropped, allowing Tolson to score and instead of Lakeside having its first round of the inning, Folsom took a 4-2 lead. Blake MacDonald followed with an infield single and Daniel Pax walked to load the bases. Noah Hayhurst, Folsom's last batter in the lineup, drew a walk to force across Folsom's fifth run, as the game slipped further out of Lakeside's reach. For good measure, Zach Schafer then ripped a two-run single to put Folsom in front 7-2. Folsom added three more runs to the total in the sixth inning with an RBI single from Tolson followed by a pair of RBI groundouts from Hightower and Padilla. "When we saw the brackets we were like, here we are facing Lakeside in the second game," Folsom American coach Chad McGowan said. "We knew it would be a good game. The kids knew that. We didn't have to say anything. All but two players were on the team last year. They knew what the game meant. "It was a nice win for us. We've been trying to emphasize doing the little things and that will help us get over the hump and I felt like today we did those things. We had good at bats, put some bunts down and getting guys to third base and then getting the ground ball to the right side. We did the little things, and our pitching, Juchinski and Flores, was great. The energy from the kids was great. It was a great game for them."