Mustangs' Open Regionals By Ripping Red Rock

Crouched low behind home plate, the Manhattan Beach All-Star catcher Ian McLoughlin has access to a wealth of information. He knows as well as anyone how a hitter is reacting to pitches. He sees it, up close.

And as Anthony Lombardo misfired with fastball after fastball on Tuesday at the start of the Mustangs' opening game at the Senior League Western Regionals, one thing became clear. Dial that in, and this team from Red Rock is done.

Lombardo did that, going on to strike out nine batters in just four innings, and the Mustangs went on to an 11-1 victory over the Nevada state champions at Jay Littleton Ball Park in Ontario in a game shortened to five innings by the 10-run rule.

''It started out a little dicey. Anthony wasn't throwing too many strikes. But I was pretty sure just looking at these guys, they're not going to be swinging the bats too much,'' McLoughlin said.

''Anthony throws pretty hard, so it was just get him in a groove, throw strikes. It takes him a little while to get into (a rhythm), but once he started throwing strikes, throwing fastballs, they're not going to do too much against him.''

After walking the first two batters that he faced on eight pitches, Lombardo gave up a RBI single – on a curveball, further evidence to pound fastballs.

After that, Red Rock could barely put a dent in the left-hander, one of three varsity players from Mira Costa High who are on this All-Star team.

He struck out the final two batters in the first inning, struck out the side in the second, and had two more in the third and fourth before Morgan Ascher came on to work a quick and easy one-two-three fifth.

''He settled down and after that he was lights out throwing strikes, then he was able to get the curveball over and the changeup. Everything was working and, you know, we saw the Anthony Lombardo that we're used to seeing,'' Manager Carlos Rojas said. ''He had at one point five (strikeouts) in a row and seven out of nine hitters. He got in a groove.''

In his last two starts, Lombardo has recorded 29 outs – 21 coming on strikeouts.

''I just got into a rhythm and everyone was striking out,'' he said.

The Manhattan Beach Little League All-Stars, 1-0 in Pool B, plays Oregon at 4 p.m. on Wednesday and has games on Saturday against Washington and Sunday against the host District 23 champions.

The top two teams in each pool advance to the semifinals on Monday, and at this point, they have to be a favorite to advance.

The Mustangs, in the regional tournament for the first time in program history, simply are deeper than the All-Star teams they have played to this point.

That again was evident in the victory over Red Rock, with Jackson Lipps coming off the bench to break the game open with a two-run single in the fourth inning.

The Mustangs had taken a 4-1 lead in the first inning, scoring on RBI singles by Bret Collins and Lombardo and a sacrifice fly by Turner Conrad. And they were up 5-1 into the fourth, when Brett Clark reached base to open the inning.

He went to second on a walk to Ryan Erickson and both runners advanced into scoring position on a sacrifice bunt by Austin Henning.

Lipps, who replaced Collins in the lineup, followed with a sharp single to center.

''All I was thinking at the time was stay in there, don't get fooled by the curveball, and we needed insurance runs. That's all we wanted,'' Lipps said. ''We wanted this game in the bag. It was kind if iffy at the beginning, but we wanted to make sure we had this game in the bag.

''From the batters before me, I was paying attention to their first pitches, and they didn't get one fastball, so I wasn't thinking first-pitch fastball, I was thinking get in the count, get comfortable, know what he's going to throw and drive it.''

Lipps later scored on a RBI single by McLoughlin, extending the Mustangs lead to 8-1. The three-run inning pretty much got them what they wanted and three more runs in the bottom of the fifth inning (all of them scoring on wild pitches) got them off the field a couple of innings early.