Proud Pirates bow out of TOC

HUNTINGTON BEACH ? After going where no other Costa Mesa Little League team had gone this season ? to the semifinals of the District 62 Tournament of Champions ? the Costa Mesa National Minor A Pirates found yet another destination that would prompt envy from their ballplaying peers:

One last postgame pizza party.

A 12-3 loss to the Huntington Valley Angels on Monday at LeBard Park, did not appear to curb either the appetite, or the enthusiasm of this band of 9-, 10- and 11-year-olds, whom their manager believes should be plenty proud of their 19-2 season.

“When we drafted these guys, we thought we had a Minor B team,” Pirates Manager Bee Jay Mazur recalled of his squad’s humble beginnings.

“But they came a long, long way from where they started this year. They came together as a team and I’m very, very proud of them.”

The Pirates had won nine or 10 in a row coming into Monday’s game and their only previous loss had, in effect, been orchestrated by Mazur and his two assistants.

“We didn’t pitch our best pitchers that game and we made a few other changes in our lineup,” Mazur said of the midseason loss. “We thought the kids needed to come down to earth a little bit.”

There was no such sandbagging Monday, as the Angels put enough pressure on the Pirates to ultimately claim victory.

The Pirates produced three of their five hits in the first two innings, when they took a pair of leads.

After retiring the Angels in order in the first, keyed by a sparkling defensive play on which third baseman Chase Whittaker backhanded a bounding ball near the line and threw strongly to first. First baseman Brian Robbs scooped the throw on one hop to complete the play that appeared to lift the Pirates.

Trevor Ramey led off the bottom of the first with a single, advanced to third on two wild pitches, and scored on Dante Capoccia’s RBI single through the right side for a 1-0 advantage.

Huntington Valley scored twice in the second, though both runs were unearned. The error that contributed to the rally was a harbinger of things to come for the Costa Mesa defense.

But Costa Mesa produced a couple of unearned runs of its own to reclaim the lead in the second.

Brad Ehrhorn singled after Whittaker reached on a leadoff error. With one out and runners on second and third, Dylan Ulrich singled off a the glove of a leaping second baseman to tie the score.

Ehrhorn then scored from third on an RBI grounder to second by Yezion Ramirez to put the Pirates back on top.

The Pirates retained the lead until the fourth inning, when five errors helped the Angels score five runs, three unearned.

Huntington Valley cashed in two more Costa Mesa miscues for three runs in the fifth, all unearned, and tacked on two more runs in the sixth to advance to Wednesday night’s title game.

“We just had one of those bad games,” said Mazur, who had praised his team’s defensive development after Saturday’s 6-3 quarterfinal triumph over the Fountain Valley Angels.

“You don’t want it to happen in the Tournament of Champions, but these are 10- and 11-year-old kids. Sometimes, you’re going to have a bad game.”

The Pirates’ unwillingness to quit in the face of adversity ? a trait Mazur also boasted about after Saturday’s game ? was illustrated when Costa Mesa executed an unlikely double play to end the fifth.

With runners on first and second, Sean O’Toole, the Angels’ cleanup hitter who had singled and doubled, drove a fly ball to right field.

Right fielder Ulrich ran under it and stabbed at it with his glove above his head. The ball disappeared into the pocket, but popped out. Ulrich, however, gathered it in again near his chest. As the base runners strayed off their bases, apparently confused as to whether or not Ulrich had caught it, Ulrich threw wildly to the infield. The ball sailed toward the Angels dugout in between first and home, but ricocheted to catcher Capoccia, who threw to second base in time to forcethe retreating runner for your basic 9-2-6 double play.

Dylan Tyler also singled and stole a base for the Pirates, who did not have a runner reach third base after the second inning.

Kohl Ponsford had six strikeouts in four innings on the mound.

Ulrich reached in both his plate appearances, walking and stealing a base in the fifth inning.

Also contributing to the Pirates’ extended Tournament of Champions run were Connor Pearce, Alexandra Mazur and Haydon Swift.