This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Sports

All-Stars Win Pool B, Advance To Semis at Series

Ascher big out of the bullpen and Collins drives in go-ahead run as Manhattan Beach beats U.S. Central champion Holmes County, Ohio, 6-3 in nine innings.

BANGOR, Maine — The Manhattan Beach All-Stars entered Thursday's final round of pool play knowing they didn't need to defeat Holmes County, Ohio, to advance to the seimfinals of the Senior League World Series, just not get beat by a lopsided margin.

But having resolved the latter issue by extending Ohio into extra innings, the Mustangs went out and won anyway, scoring four runs in the top of the ninth for a 6-3 victory to remain undefeated and clinch the top seed in their pool.

The win was the 19th in a row for the U.S. West champions, who finished 4-0 in Pool B.

Find out what's happening in Hermosa Beachwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"I've been using one word to describe this run throughout this tournament, and it's real simple," Manhattan Beach manager Carlos Rojas said. "It's called a 'blur,' it's all been a blur.

"This is pretty big for us, and it's not a fluke. It's been everything from blowout games to bottom-of-the-seventh rallies to winning today in top of the ninth. It's been a heck of a ride."

Find out what's happening in Hermosa Beachwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Manhattan Beach can extend its winning streak in Friday's 11:30 a.m. semifinal against the winner of the runnerup spot in Pool A between host Bangor and defending SLWS champion West University Little League of Houston, Texas.

"It's harder to go into a game like that coming off a loss because I don't know how the kids are going to rebound," Rojas said. "It's a lot easier to come off a win than it is off a loss. That was the main drive behind us wanting to win this game."

San Nicolas, Aruba, earned the second seed from Pool B and will face Pool A champion South Vineland, N.J., on Friday in the 8:30 a.m. semifinal.

Ohio, whose only chance to advance was to defeat Manhattan Beach by a wide margin to force a three-way tie with Aruba and then hopefully qualify via tiebreaker, ends pool play with a 2-2 record.

Morgan Ascher, the third Manhattan Beach pitcher of the day, earned the win against Ohio with 4 1/3 innings of two-hit, one-run relief.

The righthander came on to get his team out of a two-out, two on jam in the fifth after Ohio had tied the game and retired 10 of the first 11 batters he faced — including a run of five consecutive strikeouts at one point — to maintain the stalemate until Manhattan Beach's offense erupted in the top of the ninth.

"My two-seam fastball was really working for me," Ascher said. "My curves and splitters weren't floating into the strike zone like they normally do but the two-seamer was working well."

Manhattan Beach had just one hit off Ohio reliever Luke Burch over the sixth, seventh and eight innings, but a leadoff single by Turner Conrad got the Mustangs going in the ninth.

Austin Henning then was hit by a pitch before Ascher used his bat to help his team, dropping a bunt toward third base for an infield hit that loaded the bases with no one out.

"I knew if the situation came up I was going to be asked to bunt by [assistant] coach Aaron Medina because that's his style," Ascher said. "He called a drag instead of a sacrifice, so I thought either get it fair or foul along the line and I got it fair and somehow I was able to beat out the throw."

Bret Collins then got ahead in the count 3-0 before grounding a 3-1 pitch up the middle for a single that drove home Conrad with the go-ahead run.

"I saw that the infield was in, so I just took a deep breath and tried not to do too much with it," Collins said. "I just tried to put the ball in play and good things will happen."

Ian McLoughlin added a sacrifice fly and Anthony Lombardo followed with an RBI single to stretch the margin to 6-2.

"We knew coming in they were good," said Ohio coach Mike Yoder of Manhattan Beach. "We watched them play all three games. They're very fundamental, they're very tough. You don't beat an Aruba team like they did by not being fundamentally strong."

Manhattan Beach finished with 13 hits, including three from Collins and two each from McLoughlin, Lombardo and Conrad.

- By Ernie Clark, Bangor Daily News

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Hermosa Beach