Doing it the Hard Way!

By Mark Cohen
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Updated: July 11, 2019

Doing it the hard way! That would be a good description of how three Orange County teams advanced to the Section 10 Tournament at Youth Athletic Park in Mission Viejo.

There are four teams competing at the home of North Mission Viejo starting on Saturday, July 13th. Three of them had to get there via the loser’s bracket. The three leagues doing it the hard way were Aliso Viejo, Ocean View(Huntington Beach) and Santa Margarita National. (The photo below is one shot of North Mission Viejo Little League. This is where the Section 10 Tournament takes place. It was taken by yours truly).

Aliso Viejo(AV) suffered an early loss to a scrappy and resilient Northwood Little League from Irvine. AV came back to beat Northwood twice with some timely and solid hitting. The tournament was played on AV’s home field, but Northwood brought lots of enthusiastic and loud fans that made for a spirited and competitive couple of games.

Ocean View(OV) took an early loss to a very formidable and fundamentally sound Huntington Valley Little League(HV). OV’s typically hot bats were cooled by tough HV pitching early in the District 62 Tournament. However, like Aliso Viejo, OV stormed back to defeat HV in back to back championship games at Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley(Shout out to Fountain Valley Little League. They are a semi-small league who always puts on a great District 62 Tournament). OV’s bats produced lots of hard-hit balls in their back to back wins against HV. Watching them hit from the first time they faced HV to the last two games was definitely a night and day experience. OV’s gloves were also needed as HV smacked the ball. There were many golden defensive plays, but two stood out. On one, the OV left fielder chased down a line drive toward the foul line, left his feet, dove and came up with the best catch I have seen this season. On another, an OV catcher also dove to make a super nice catch on a pop bunt. Those two plays were typical of OV’s defense throughout the District 62 Tournament.

Santa Margarita National Little League(SM) was not to be outdone. They, too, lost early in their District 68 play only to come back and claim the crown by sweeping North Mission Viejo Little League in a doubleheader that stretched well into Tuesday night. The second game found North Mission batting in the bottom of the 6th. There were two outs and they were down 4-3 with the bases loaded. A tricky ground ball turned into a bang-bang final out that started the celebration for Santa Margarita. The games at Youth Athletic Park were fantastic and the crowd Tuesday night was loud and really large for a game in the early rounds of play.

North Mission Viejo Little League(A shout out to them too! If the Sections and SoCal State Tourneys are as well run as the District 68 one was, baseball fans are in for a real treat) is also the scene of the Section 10 Tournament which starts Saturday, July 13th at 10:00. The first game features East Anaheim Little League from District 46 vs. Aliso Viejo of District 55. East Anaheim has become a high achieving league in District 46(Central Orange County). They always play hard. They will be battling a hard-hitting AV team that won the Southern California State Tourney as 11’s last year. (The photo below is another shot of Youth Athletic Park in Mission Viejo. Photo again snapped by Mark Cohen)

The second game will feature Santa Margarita National vs. Ocean View. Both of these teams are all around solid and they have lots of history behind them. Santa Margarita made it to South Williamsport two years ago and Ocean View won it all at the Little League World Series in 2011 behind one of the best pitching staffs ever seen at that wonderful scene in Pennsylvania. The photo below is found at Ocean View Little League in Huntington Beach. It honors the 2011 champs. Photo snapped by this newbie reporter known as Mark Cohen.

There are some good teams playing solid ball in Southern California, including our friends at Sweetwater Valley Little League in Bonita. Please read the excellent columns by my friend, Rebbi Rabbs. He covers the Little League scene down in San Diego really, really well. I think a team coming out of Section 10 has a chance to really compete in the final round before Western Regionals in San Bernardino. If you can get to Youth Athletic Park in Mission Viejo between July 13th and July 16th(possibly the 17th too), you are sure to see some good competitive baseball.