Fifty-five minutes. That is all it took for the Turlock American 11-year-old All Stars to dominate Mariposa on Friday afternoon from Julien Field in their opening game of the District 73 tournament.
A 13-run rally in the second was sufficient enough for the American team to grab the mercy-rule victory in dominating fashion after four innings, ending in a 15-3 final.
“Our big inning was the second, we went through the entire lineup,” said Turlock American head coach Bill York. “We were very prepared, and they came ready to play, preparation is what I’ve been hammering regardless of what our competition is. We are going to go out and play our game of baseball and the results will speak for themselves.”
The Americans opened up the tournament with a punch.
Robert McDaniel started the scoring rally in the bottom of the first after hammering a homerun to put the Americans up 1-0 — and they didn’t give the lead up after that.
“We had close to 20 practices since they announced the teams in the first week of the month, so these kids were ready when they first came out,” said York. “And the second inning they just laid it down on them with a lot of base hits.”
The second inning was a hitting frenzy that was highlighted by 11 hits total for the team.
Rob York drilled a three-run homer in the second and the Americans took a 14-0 lead after the inning concluded.
One run was added in the third by the Americans.
On the pitching side, Carson Gonzales started on the mound for the Americans and tossed two shutout innings to start the game off while he struck out five and walked one.
McDaniel closed out the two innings, striking out a pair to end it.
Now, York and his squad advance to the second round where they will take on the Turlock National team today.
“I think we will hit the ball, and out of the 13 players, we have 13 pitchers and we have eight catchers,” said York. “Those are the two premium spots and we are deep in both and they take good approaches, and do things right, have finesse and good baseball IQ. With all that and hard work, I think we can go far in the tournament.”
The Turlock Americans will take on the National squad from Julien at 7 p.m. today.
“National always has a good team and they are just well coached and always competitive,” said York. “People like to target Turlock American since we have had success the last few years, so trying to tell the kids they have a target on their backs and just need to back it up and they did that today.”
