The Green Monsters, Huntington Valley Advance To Final 10 !!

By Rabbi Rabbs
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Updated: July 18, 2018

(Iván Rodríguez of Chula Vista’s Park View Little League smacks a three-run homer Tuesday to help lead PVLL to the Southern California Section 7 championship. Photo courtesy of Jon Bigornia.)

And just like that, two super heavyweights, who may well be on a collision course to meet in the finals of the 2018 Little League Southern California Championship tournament, have each won their respective section and have clinched a berth to be among SoCal’s final 10 teams to compete in that tourney which starts on Saturday at Aliso Viejo Little League in Aliso Viejo.

On Tuesday, Chula Vista’s Park View Little League reached the finish line first by winning SoCal’s Section 7 title, followed a couple of hours later by Huntington Valley Little League of Huntington Beach which captured the Section 10 banner.

This time, let us discuss Park View first, as that 7-0 team won its section first, with a convincing performance by hammering Cajón De Oro Little League of La Mesa, 17-2, in less than three full innings on the 15-run mercy rule.

The Green Monsters’ hot bats came to life big time at Chula Vista American Little League’s ballpark in Chula Vista, as Kainoa Baptista blasted a grand slam, Michael Rodríguez belted a three-run homer and a two-run homer, Iván Rodríguez smacked his own three-run homer and won the game with a two-run ground rule double in the bottom of the third inning to give Park View a 15-run lead, which is enough to end a game after three innings. José Mendoza contributed with his own two-run double.

Baptista picked up the win on the mound, giving up only one hit during his three innings of work. Park View demonstrated that it is deep in both offense and pitching. According to The Green Monsters’ manager, Will Bleisch, Park View is what he termed “pitching rich”, as he told CSN on Sunday after his team’s Section 7 victory that day.

“We are confident we have enough pitching to move forward” in this summer’s Little League tournaments, Bleisch said. “We have a bunch of different guys that can get the job done.”

Park View will open the Aliso Viejo tournament Saturday against the Section 6 champion still to be determined. Until then, stay tuned !!

Now, let us recap the Section 10 finals in which Huntington Valley improved to 7-0 by defeating Irvine Ranch Little League of Irvine, 8-3, at Aliso Viejo’s ballpark. During those seven games, HVLL has reportedly only given up a total of four runs! That is impressive. Once again, big thank you to my friend Mark Cohen for providing his copious notes to CaliSports News, Southern California’s undisputed leader in Little League coverage.

Bradley Morlett did the heavy lifting on the mound this time for Huntington Valley, as he reportedly pitched 4 2/3 innings, while giving up only one run on three hits, and recorded eight strikeouts.

At the plate, Tony Martínez led the way by blasting a first-inning two-run homer over the fence in left center. Wyatt Thomas hit a key three-run double in the fourth inning to break the game wide open, as the Huntington Beach boys never looked back. Gage Everson added an RBI double in the sixth inning to put the icing on HVLL’s championship cake.

Huntington Valley will start the SoCal series on Saturday against the Section 1 champion. If Huntington and Park View each win their first two games of the upcoming tournament, they would meet on Thu., Jul. 26, in the winner’s bracket final, with the winner of that game vaulting directly into the SoCal championship game. Until then, Let’s Go SoCal !!

Meanwhile, I shall leave us with some awesome action photographs of The Green Monsters taken Tuesday by my good friend Jon Bigornia. Enjoy !!