Brick by Brick.
No, it’s not the local music entertainment venue.
It’s the slogan for this year’s Spring Valley Little League Senior Division team that has designs on qualifying for this year’s Senior League Baseball World Series July 26 to Aug. 2 in Easley, S.C.
The California District 66 champions keep moving up the pipeline to ever greater challenges and success. Now they are poised on the doorstep of going as far as they can go.
“Brick by brick,” said Spring Valley manager Esteban Virto, whose team will take the field in the upcoming West Region tournament in Oakland after winning the Southern California state tournament with a 10-0 run-rule victory against Port Hueneme last Friday at Sweetwater Valley Little League. “We’ve been building this since they were 10 years old.”
Spring Valley has now won three all-star tournaments, defeating neighborhood rival Encanto to win the district title before sweeping Eastlake by runaway scores of 15-0 and 17-3 to capture the California Section 7 championship. Spring Valley finished 5-1 at the SoCal tourney to extend its postseason record to 9-1 and overall record on the summer, including league play, to 19-1.
“It’s always a goal to go further than we did the year before,” Virto said.
Spring Valley opened the 10-team tournament with a 4-1 victory against Canyon Springs on July 2, then continued in the double-elimination bracket with a 10-0 win over Chino American.
Spring Valley continued on course to the championship game with am 8-5 win over North Venice and a 6-2 victory against La Mirada in the winners bracket semifinal.
Three teams were still left standing at this point: Spring Valley in the championship game and La Mirada versus Port Hueneme in the challenger bracket semifinal.
Port Hueneme eliminated La Mirada, 8-2, to advance to meet Spring Valley in the final. The teams got to know each other well in what turned out to be a two-game series after Port Hueneme hung a 3-1 loss on Spring Valley to force a double-elimination rematch.
“The 3-1 loss was our lowest output on offense in the tournament,” Virto said. “We had to focus on our hitting in the second game against them. We were stopped by off-speed pitches.”
In what proved to be the game for the state banner, Spring Valley got out to a positive 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning. Kaden Bedsole drew a lead-off walk, Romeo Briones followed with a one-out basehit to place runners at the corners. Ivan Virto then delivered the game’s first RBI.
Port Hueneme went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning against Spring Valley starter Michael Ortiz.
The District 66 and Section 7 champions upped their lead to 5-0 with four more runs in the top of the fourth inning to break the game open. Briones and the younger Virto started the frame with back-to-back basehits, followed by a basehit on a bunt to load the bases.
A pitching and catching change ensued for Port Hueneme. Randy Perez made the score 4-0 with a basehit and Alex Rodriguez later scored on a wild pitch.
5-0 Spring Valley.
Port Hueneme remained scoreless when a runner was thrown out at the plate in the bottom of the inning,
Spring Valley tacked on another run in the top of the fifth inning. Ortiz singled to start it off and Virto followed with a sharply hit ball to the left side that resulted in a fielding error. Isaac Lederer reached base to load them up and Rodriguez promptly followed with a sacrifice play for a 6-0 lead.
Spring Valley kept its motor running with four more runs in the top of the sixth inning for a runaway 10-run lead.
Jacob Abeyta opened the inning with a walk, stole second base and came around on a basehit by Perez. Three stolen bases, a wild pitch, a hit batsman, a sacrifice fly and an infield hit combined to score the other three runs.
When Port Hueneme failed to score in run in the bottom of the sixth inning, the game was terminated by the 10-run rule.
The pitch count at this level of Little League baseball is 95. Ortiz hit that number by inducing the final out of the game after coming up one batter short in the semifinals.
“It feels great,” Ortiz said. “It was more of an all-around effort. I just had to trust my defense and let other guys make the plays. I knew the team could do it.”
Spring Valley finished 5-1 in its six tournament games while Port Hueneme finished 6-2 by playing every day in the event.
Twelve of the 14 players on the Spring Valley roster attend Helix Charter High School. As a freshman, Briones logged a 0.300 hitting average and 0.440 on-base percentage. Briones also went 3-1 on the hill with a 1.26 earned-run average and 35 strikeouts in 39 innings.
The West Region championship tournament features 11 teams: Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, Northern California, Southern California (Spring Valley) and the host team. Tournament dates are July 16-22.
Spring Valley draws Washington in its first game.
A total of 19 games will determine the regional champion.
The Senior League Baseball World Series includes 12 regional champions: six from the United States and six from international regions.
U.S. regions include Central, East, South Carolina District 1, Southeast, Southwest and West. International regions include Asia-Pacific, Australia, Canada, Caribbean, Europe-Africa and Latin America.
Coquivacoa, Maracaibo (Venezuela) defeated Irmo, S.C. to win last year’s Senior League Baseball World Series. Redondo Beach represented the West region.
