Montebello Angels 9, Desert Pirates 5
Submitted by Robert Oskin, Angels manager
Once again, the Montebello Angels headed out to Las Vegas for the MSBL Las Vegas Open, finishing 2-1 in the round robin while losing our first game to the ever-tough Desert Pirates. On Sunday we barely beat a really good team from Mexico, 11-10 to get the second seed in the playoffs. After beating the Sultanes in the playoffs we had to once again go back and play the Desert Pirates for the championship.
Our starting pitcher Bobby Yanez thru a gem for 8 2/3 innings, holding them down to four runs. Cisco Vega came in the eighth for the close. The Desert Pirates definitely made it interesting, as they had bases loaded in the bottom of ninth with only one out and their number three hitter, Manny Pimental, representing the tying run at the plate. Vega got him to ground into a 4-6-3 double play to end the game.
It’s always great to play such a quality team as the Desert Pirates, as they have some really great ball players and know how to play the game right. We took a really good squad out to Vegas and overall the whole team did great. Frank Rodriguez, Joel Bustamante, Ivan Valencia and Brandon Hedding led the way for us with their constant heading. Plus, our work horse and savior Bobby Yanez pitched in three games total over the 3-day weekend.
Our So Cal Titans team were undefeated at 5-0 all the way to the championship game. We had a great pitching rotation of Frank Duenas, Josue Iniguez, Brandon Colfman, Dalton Rederick, Jovanny Bramasco and Leo Madrid, who relieved Josue Iniguez on our playoff game and started our championship game. Leo went seven innings straight with Josue relieving him and closing off our game with a win, behind great support of our line-up of hitters. The MVP of our tournament was Scott Mitchell, who hit for the cycle on our playoff game.
The 2019 edition of the Blue Jays was compiled of players from the OC Sox, So Cal Blue Jays and a few players from Las Vegas. We had solid pitching performances and lots of timely hitting, scoring 61 runs in five games.
D-Bat went undefeated through pool play by dispatching the Central Coast Tigers 12-4 and the Great Lakes Tigers 10-1 on Saturday and winning the Sunday morning game 6-5 against the gallant LS Warriors team to secure the top playoff seed. The Angels then beat the Las Vegas 55’s 17-1 on Sunday afternoon and when the Central Coast Tigers knocked off the OC Dodgers for the second straight game, the championship game matchup was set for Monday morning at Sierra Vista High School.
strikeout and an inning ending double play to escape. The Tigers scratched across a run in the top of the 11th but the Angels responded when with two outs and nobody on base, consecutive hits by Teddy Peterson, Moe Hawkins and Dave Uliberri again tied it. At that point, after throwing 11 strong innings, Parado had to leave to catch a flight and Mark Flatten came on to throw a scoreless 12th.
Submitted by Vince Woods, Blue Jays manager
The story of our weekend is a typical Team Victory tournament: good pitching and excellent defense. We feel that we have the most athletic defense of any 50+ team out there, which allows us to compete at the 45+ when we must. We are really strong up the middle, with John Knoblauh in center field, Don Bell and Bob Pone at shortstop and second base, and Pokey Sanchez behind the plate. It’s easy to talk about hitting stats, but our pitching and defense is what consistently wins for us. This tournament was no different. There were quite a few balls hit that would have been base hits elsewhere, and were turned into outs this weekend to kill potential rallies. Don Bell had multiple diving stops followed by strong throws to turn hits into outs. Bell and Pone turned several double plays. It’s hard to get a fly ball to drop around Knoblauh. We had four double plays turned in our second pool play game against the Great Lake Tigers. Our defense makes our good pitching that much better.
a little worn out by an extended semi-final game. (an umpire went down, causing an hour delay in the 100 degree heat). We just had a little more depth on our pitching roster. Scott Hildebrandt threw a complete game victory in game one against the Utah Rockies (10-5), I was fortunate enough to throw a complete game victory in game two against the Great Lakes Tigers (21-5), and Rafael Fuentes (who ended up participating) threw a complete game 9-5 victory in the semi-final game against the Central Coast Tigers. That left a fresh Dave Morrow to throw a complete game victory in the championship game against the Blue Jays (18-6), avenging our loss to the Blue Jays in pool play. We were able to do this with a fairly small roster (14), and losing two players to injuries in the finals and having two players who had to leave early.
was truly a team effort up and down the lineup. In the championship game, the Vampires/Team Victory scored ten runs in the top of the third inning to make the score 15-2. Then it was just a matter of surviving the heat. By the end of the game, we only had nine healthy bodies to put on the field. We lost two to work duties, two to leg injuries in the final game, one who couldn’t feel his left arm due to pitching the morning semi-final game, and we were missing a couple of key teammates who couldn’t play with us this weekend because they had commitments elsewhere.
In the bottom of the first inning the Rattlers struck first with two doubles and three singles to score four runs. Our complete line-up was offensively effective in the championship game and throughout tournament, as we went undefeated. So Cal Fire chipped away and tied the game in the third, then went ahead by three runs with the score now 7-4 in the fifth. We rallied up and answered back with three runs and tied the game at seven apiece after five innings. In the seventh we scored four more and then added an extra five in the eighth, not looking back! We then held them down to win 16-8.
complimented Paul at second base, turning double plays smoothly as he and Paul worked well together. Joe batted at the bottom, carrying hits and speed as an extra lead-off hitter. All other Rattlers had either power and/or speed on offense and even the subs off the bench contributed to all wins.
The Senators plated two runs in the top of the third while only contributing one hit but that score would hold up as the Blue Jays couldn’t muster up any more runs. The Senators added another run in the fourth without the aid of a hit and the 4-2 advantage was the final score. The Blue Jays could only tally three hits in the final seven innings. The Blue Jay pitchers were also stingy by only allowing the Senators three hits over the final five innings.
Contributed by Jim Tygrett-DiNuzzi