Long Beach youth baseball team enjoys postseason run

The Long Beach PONY 14U All-Stars have reached the PONY World Series twice since 2008, and four times since 1959. This summer, the LB PONY 13U All-Stars took a turn at making history for the storied youth baseball organization by wiing the Super Regional for the first time.

Long Beach 13U won its first 13 postseason games while taking the District and Super Regional championships. The All-Stars outscored those opponents by a combined 117-29, and an average of 9-2. They then won two games at the Zone tournament in Whittier last week, but lost to Bel Passi 7-3 in the semifinal on Saturday to be eliminated from PONY World Series contention.

Long Beach had three wins in its final at-bat this postseason. The last one came in the Super Regional championship game when Gui Quinones hit a triple to score Sebastian Smith in the bottom of the seventh iing.

Pitcher Tyler Bermundo was near perfect for Long Beach. The ace when 4-0 and had a 1.05 ERA while hitting .450. He pitched complete games in all three championship games. John Lanterman led the team with a .557 average and 25 RBIs, and Ryan Geck led with 29 RBIs and five home runs. Quinones scored a team-high 27 runs scored while hitting .466, and DJ Erkman was second on the team with a .543 average.

Long Beach PONY 14U All-Stars

The 14U All-Stars have 11 returners and host half of the Super Regional at Whaley Park this weekend. Long Beach opened the 16-team tournament against Whittier on Thursday night. There are eight teams competing at Whaley, and eight at the Los Alamitos PONY field. The wier from both sites will play the championship game at Los Alamitos on Sunday. The overall champion travel to Mountain View for the West Zone tournament next month.

Uptown Little League

The Uptown Long Beach Dirtbags won the Minor A championship after defeating the other league champions in District 38 earlier this month. It is the first Tournament of Champions title since Plaza Little League changed names and moved to Cherry Park eight years ago.

“This group of boys never gave up no matter what the score was,” assistant coach Gabriel Villalobos said. “They stayed mentally tough throughout the season and between their mental toughness and talent there was no way this group of boys would be denied.”

After five consecutive wins to start the postseason, Uptown fell behind 6-0 to Long Beach Stearns Little League but scored five runs in the top of the sixth iing in a comeback win. Pitcher Adrian Bernal won his second TOC game to continue the wiing streak, and pitcher Aaron Ramirez picked up the win in the championship game. Bernal, Ramirez, Jack Champlin, Julio Gonzalez, and Malakai Savage were the backbone of the Uptown rotation this year with catcher Gabriel Villalobos II behind the plate.

Advertisement

Long Beach Little League

The LBLL Major All-Stars won the California Section 5 tournament earlier this month.

Los Altos Softball

The 10U All-Star team advanced to the state tournament in Lancaster and competed against 30 other teams for a shot at a state championship.