The Crescenta Valley Little League 10-to-12-year-olds baseball All-Stars qualified for the Section 2 Championship tournament. To do so, the squad had to win the District 16 title, which they did in dominant fashion.
“Winning District was great. It was a great experience for the entire city. Obviously, Crescenta Valley Little League had tremendous success,” Crescenta Valley manager Chris Cicuto said. “I thought that all the teams there were well-represented. The other leagues were very competitive and professional.”
The All-Stars from Crescenta Valley faced Jewel City/Tujunga in the final game and came away with a 4-0 victory. All the runs came in the fourth inning, which started with a leadoff walk, followed by a couple singles, before capitalizing on a throwing error.
“Going against the Jewel City pitchers, they are extremely strong pitchers, we took some really quality at-bats and did enough to be fortunate enough, to come represent our District over in Sectionals,” Cicuto said.
The first game in the District Tournament for Crescenta Valley was against Jewel City/Tujunga, which they won 3-0. The second game saw Crescenta Valley take down Vaquero 13-2, which set up the final win in the rematch with Jewel City/Tujunga. That meant Crescenta Valley only gave up two runs in 18 innings of baseball on the way to the District 16 title.
Key to the success was the pitching of Jacob Redke, who had games of 13 strikeouts and 11 strikeouts.
“I was really excited we won the District,” Redke said.
Also contributing with their work from the mound were Matt Weller and Jackson Cicuto.
“Redke was outstanding the entire tournament,” Chris Cicuto said. “He had great command of his fastball. Was able to land his breaking ball in certain counts and just kept guys off balance. He just filled up the zone so well and competed, which was great for us.”
After the District title was secured, the requisite photos were taken in front of the scoreboard with the banner.
“It was fun,” Crescenta Valley’s Drew Campell said. “It was cool to take pictures and everything like that.”
All this led to Crescenta Valley’s opening game in Section 2 Championship play on July 14 in Allendale Park in Pasadena, where the District 16 champs matched up with Santa Anita, which earned its way there by winning District 17.
The game was scoreless until the All-Stars from Santa Anita erupted for all six of their runs in the fourth inning in what was eventually a 6-1 loss for Crescenta Valley, putting them in the losers bracket.
“Today we had just one bad inning,” Chris Cicuto said after the opening game of the Sectional.
Weller, a leftie, started the game and held Santa Anita scoreless for the first three innings. Then he walked the leadoff batter in the fourth, hit the next batter and gave up an infield single to load the bases. Weller gave way to Marcus Yang on the mound, but Santa Anita kept things rolling. The first run came in on a walk and the next on a single. The Crescenta Valley infield then turned a double play, but another run came across in the process. After that, Santa Anita swatted three consecutive run-scoring doubles to push the advantage to 6-0 before Wang got the last out of the frame.
“Matt pitched well today. He did what he usually does, changed speed on guys, kept on the outer half,” Chris Cicuto said.
Crescenta Valley broke through in the bottom of the sixth and final inning. Jimo Christie led off with a double to deep center field. Two batters later, Wang hit a single up the middle to put runners on the corners. William Gocke followed with a sacrifice fly to center field to score Christie and break up the shutout. However, two batters later the game was over.
The sectional championship is a double-elimination affair, so Crescenta Valley was back at it on Saturday playing Quartz Hill, but it was not to be. Crescenta Valley gave up one unearned run in the top of the first, went on to lose 1-0 and was eliminated, despite another strong outing by Redke, who went the distance on the mound.
In the bottom of the sixth, Crescenta Valley had rallied to put the tying run on third base and the winning run on second, but the All-Stars from Quartz Hill stranded them there when they recorded the final out, eliminating Crescenta Valley from Sectional play.
“The young men competed well,” Chris Cicuto said. “Now, we close this chapter and move on.”
First published in the July 22 print issue of the Glendale News-Press.
