JENKINS TWP. — Plains left the bases loaded in the in the third and fourth innings Monday night.
Omar Vincente-Sanchez made sure it didn’t happen again in the fifth.
Vincente-Sanchez blasted the first pitch he saw over the left-center fence for a grand slam as Plains used a five-run inning to defeat Mountain Top 6-3 for the District 16 Little League Major Baseball championship.
Plains advances to the Section 5 tournament at the Back Mountain Little League where it will play District 17 champ Abington on Sunday at a time to be determined.
Vincente-Sanchez’s grand slam was part of the five-run fifth and also scored Donny Stark, Braedon Hollingshead and Brayden Tarnalicki. All three walked, with Hollingshead being walked intentionally. Alex Dutter, hitting 12th in the batting order, started the inning by lifting a home run over the left-field fence.
“Omar has been swinging a really good bat,” Plains manager Don Stark said. “When he came up I said to myself ‘This is going to go a long way.’ I don’t know if it landed yet, but that was a big, big swing.”
Mountain Top, which defeated Plains 10-7 in nine innings in pool play, didn’t fall easily as it mounted a rally attempt in the top of the sixth.
Down 6-0, Mountain Top’s Tyler Barker started the inning by reaching on an error. Bryce Graham singled an out later, and he and Barker scored on Kelten Rivera’s triple into the right-field corner. Avery Tetlak’s sac fly brought home Rivera to cut the deficit to 6-3.
Ryder Zurawski then walked and Michael Woss hit an infield single, but the pair ended up stranded on the corners.
“We could have easily rolled over and we didn’t,” Mountain Top manager Jeff Williams said. “We have the offense to make up a six-run difference. They fought. The bottom of my order turned the order over and we had the tying run at the plate. That’s Little League baseball. It was a very good baseball game.”
Mountain Top also had leadoff singles from Woss in the second inning and Tetlak in the fourth, but failed to score. Stark started for Plains and struck out nine before reaching the 85-pitch limit with two outs in the fifth.
Plains broke a scoreless tie in the fourth. Tarnalicki, Vincente-Sanchez and Landon Havard drew consecutive walks. Tarnalicki scored on a fielder’s choice by Ashton Dutter. Plains walked 11 times, with four of them resulting in runs.
District 16 Major Baseball Championship
Plains 6, Mountain Top 3
Mountain Top`AB`R`H`BI
Rivera ss`3`1`1`2
Tetlak cf`2`0`1`1
Zurawski p`2`0`0`0
Woss lf`3`0`2`0
Stahlnecker rf`3`0`0`0
Paulson c`2`0`0`0
Williams 2b`2`0`0`0
Buchanan 1b`2`0`0`0
Barker 3b`2`1`0`0
Parsons eh`1`0`0`0
Graham eh`2`1`2`0
Totals`24`3`6`3
Plains`AB`R`H`BI
McKeown 2b`2`0`0`0
Stark p`0`1`0`0
Hollingshead ss`2`1`1`0
Taranlicki 1b`1`2`0`0
Vincente-Sanchez cf`2`1`1`4
Havard c`2`0`0`0
Tommaselli lf`2`0`0`0
As.Dutter 3b`1`0`0`1
Antolik eh`1`0`0`0
Miller eh`1`0`0`0
Paulino eh`2`0`1`0
Al.Dutter cf`2`1`1`1
Totals`18`6`4`6
Mountain Top`000`003 — 3
Plains`000`15x — 6
3B — Rivera. HR — Vincente-Sanchez, Al.Dutter.
Plains`IP`H`R`ER`BB`SO
Stark (W)`5.1`5`3`2`0`9
Hollingshead`0.2`1`0`0`1`1
Mountain Top`IP`H`R`ER`BB`SO
Zurawski (L)`3.0`2`1`1`7`3
Williams`1.2`2`5`4`4`1
Rivera`0.1`0`0`0`0`0
