EDH wraps up 10-11-year-old All-Star title

Using what they felt was a sub-par performance in last year's All-Star tournament as motivation; the 10-11-year old All-Stars from El Dorado Hills put together a four-game sweep of the competition in winning the District 54 All-Star Tournament this year. On Thursday at Richards Field in Roseville, El Dorado Hills defeated Lakeside, 7-1, to win the tournament. El Dorado Hills scored twice in the first inning and added three runs to their lead in the third and put the game away with a pair of runs in the fifth. El Dorado Hills had 10 hits in five innings, while their pitchers, Logan Reichard and Cole Gibbons, limited Lakeside to seven hits and four walks and only allowed one run in six innings. Lakeside threatened to score in the third, fourth and fifth innings and yet only scored one run. In the third inning the first two hitters, Colin Pipal and Will Fitch, singled off starting pitcher Reichard and were moved up a base after a sacrifice bunt by Kingston Redin. After Reichard struck out the next batter for the second out of the inning, he was replaced by Gibbons, who got Lakeside leadoff hitter Austin Henning to ground out to end the inning. In the fourth inning, Kyle Henning and Joseph Long walked and singled with one out before Gibbons got the second out of the inning. Levi Raby then singled to left field, and Henning was zooming to home, but he stopped halfway there and retreated back to third base. The ball from catcher Jake Trier beat him to the bag and he was out for the third out of the inning. Lakeside finally got on the scoreboard in the fifth inning. Carson Howard led off with a single and after two outs, Redin drew a walk to put runners at the corners. The two then perfectly executed a double steal for the team's only run of the game. El Dorado Hills, meanwhile, scored two runs in the first inning. Trier reached on a fielder's choice before JJ Filippini singled. The ball got by the center fielder and Trier scored all the way from first base. George Bergamo the singled in Filippini to give EDH a 2-0 lead. Trier led off the third inning by reaching on an error and Filippini followed with a single to put two runners on. Bergamo picked up his second run batted in with a single and Matt Gabbard and Brady Gill followed with run scoring groundouts that scored Filippini and Bergamo that gave EDH a 5-0 lead. El Dorado Hills' last two runs came in the fifth when Reichard walked and Trier followed with a home run to make it 7-1. After the game, you couldn't wipe the smile of EDH manager's Jason Reichard's face. "These guys grinded all year," Reichard said. "Last year they were disappointed that they didn't win and felt they were a better team than they showed. They persevered and they came back and put together a solid tournament and I couldn't be happier for the way they grinded. We faced a really good Lakeside team and we exorcised a lot of demons. "A lot of these kids have been playing together for a long time. Most of these kids were on the team last year, so there's a lot of camaraderie between them and a lot of familiarity and it shows. "We play a high-level defense and we do a really good job of controlling the run game, and then we can really hit the baseball." El Dorado Hills now advances to the Section 4 Tournament where they will play at 5:30 p.m. at Land Park Little League on Thursday.