EDH, Folsom American win Wednesday, will meet Sunday

Wednesday was a pivotal night in the District 54 Little League 10-11-year-old All-Star tournament. A pair of quarterfinal round games set up Sunday's semifinal with Sunday's winner advancing to the championship game. El Dorado Hills and Folsom American, winners Wednesday night, will face off at 11:30 a.m. Sunday at Hazel McFarland Field in Folsom to see which team will secure a spot in the championship game. In Wednesday's opening game, El Dorado Hills broke open a close game against Woodcreek by scoring four runs in the bottom of the fifth inning, turning a 5-4 game into a 9-4 win. With the win, El Dorado Hills avenged a loss to Woodcreek in last year's 9-10-year-old All-Star tournament, as that game was still fresh in their mind. El Dorado Hills scored runs in all five innings that they hit, but only scored one run in three of them. The team outscored Woodcreek in all but one inning. "We came out a little slow for us," El Dorado Hills Manager Jason Ball said. "We can hit with the best of them. We got some baserunners, but didn't capitalize, but the boys stuck to it and grinded. "We coach to win every inning, one inning at a time. I think they beat us in one out of five innings, so that's our mindset." EDH scored single runs in each of the first two innings. In the first, Kaiden Funk singled and three batters later Tyden Francis tripled him in for the game's first run. EDH added a second run in the second inning when Jack Phillips hit a two-out single which drove in Nicky McCreath. El Dorado Hills' starting pitcher, Francis, threw two shutout innings, but hurt himself at the end of the second inning and was pulled from the mound in favor of Funk. Woodcreek had an RBI single from Hyde Hartman to cut the lead in half. El Dorado Hills, however, came back and scored two runs in the bottom of the third, as both McCreath and Travis Beggs walked with the bases loaded to force in runs, as EDH now led 4-1. Woodcreek scored three runs in the top of the fourth to tie the score at four, as Colton Elmendorf, Lucas Slates and Harrison Hughes had RBIs. The relentless All-Stars from El Dorado Hills managed to score one run in the bottom of the inning to retake the lead, as the team's last hitter in the lineup, Walter Rios, picked up the RBI hit. El Dorado Hills tacked on four more runs in the bottom of the fifth inning. Webber had an RBI double, Maverick Garcia drove in a run and Bryson Ball knocked in the last two runs. McCreath pitched the final two innings for EDH and earned the save. "This team is special," Ball said. "I'm very proud of them. They faced a lot of tough competition this year and now we're out here to see what we can do in our own age group. We've got a tough match-up Sunday with Folsom American." In the nightcap, Folsom American, last year's District 54 champions in the 9-10-year-old All-Star Tournament with nine players back from that team, pulled away from a pesky Maidu team late to win 12-3. After 3 ½ innings Folsom American led 4-3, but scored eight runs in the last two innings to pull away for the easy win. With 12 runs scored on 11 hits, there were a lot of Folsom American hitters who had good nights. Hunter Smith had two hits, scored three runs and arguably had the biggest hit of the game, a two-out, two-run double in the bottom of the fourth inning that gave Folsom American a 6-3 lead. Brady Joves and Beck Torrant each had two hits and Colton Henry also drove in two runs for Folsom. Reed MacLeod scored two runs, as all but two Folsom American players scored runs. Henry started the game and threw the first three innings, before Hunter Smith came in to relieve Henry and pitched the last three innings. The two pitchers combined to allow three runs on three hits and three walks, while striking out 10. "I told the kids that if they let a team like that hang around, it might be a different outcome," Folsom American Manager Brandon MacLeod said. "We struggled early, as their pitcher threw a lot of curve balls and then would sneak a fastball in there and it was hard for us to get our timing. Once they pulled him, I felt like our bats started to explode. That's what we had to do against them because if we didn't put them away they were going to come back on us." Now Folsom American has their sights set on El Dorado Hills on Sunday. "El Dorado Hills is a good team," MacLeod said, "but we'll be ready."