Francisco Mateo from Latin America waits on a first inning pitch from Asia-Pacific pitcher Josh Meyer during their Senior League World Series game on Wednesday evening. Photo by Chris Lessner.
BANGOR- The Asia-Pacific regional champion from Melbourne, Australia found themselves in an early hole Wednesday evening against Latin America champ Carolina, Puerto Rico, but Melbourne found a way to pick up the offense to rally for a 13-7 Senior League World Series win at Mansfield Stadium that will send them onto the semifinals on Thursday evening.
Puerto Rico was able to build a quick 4-0 lead in top of the first inning on a two run double from Jeremy Ayala and a two run single from Josue Ortiz.
Australia got one back in their half of the first on a Puerto Rico error to make it 4-1. Puerto Rico came back with another pair of runs in the top of the second on another RBI from Ayala and also an RBI single from Jorge Romero to make it 6-1.
The champs from Asia-Pacific would then pick up the bats and in a huge way scoring 12 of the next 13 runs in the game. They began the comeback with a three run second inning highlighted by a two run triple from Jordan Barnett to make it 6-4 and knocking Latin America starter Christian Ramirez out of the game.
“We were really expecting our starting pitcher to pitch more than two or three innings, but after he couldn’t put a zero on the board that made it harder for us. We expected him to pitch three, four, five innings and we would of been in a good position. He couldn’t put up a zero and couldn’t close it out”, said Puerto Rico manager Pedro Cabrera after the game.
Australia continued the onslaught by scoring a single run in the third to cut it to 6-5 and then three straight run scoring hits from Jack Dunn, Ciaran Palmer and Jayson Arthur in the fourth to take a 8-6 lead. An RBI hit from Josh Meyer in the fifth made it 9-6 before a two run single from Tim Lane and another RBI hit from both Barnett and Palmer made it 13-6 in the sixth inning.
Ramirez completed the scoring in the contest with an RBI hit in the seventh for Puerto Rico.
Jai Lyttleton got the win on the mound for Australia in relief of Meyer. Lyttleton fired 5.1 innings allowing just one run, six hits, three walks and one strikeout. Meyer had pitched the first 1.2 innings and was tagged with six runs on three hits.
Ramirez took the loss for Puerto Rico allowing five runs, three hits, five walks and one strikeout in just two innings. The three relief pitchers for Puerto Rico gave up a total of eight runs, nine hits, five walks and had four strikeouts in four innings. The teams combined for 15 walks in the game.
Australia manager Rick Wills spoke after the game and said, “We didn’t get our best start. Josh (Meyer) didn’t have his best stuff, struggled a little bit. We needed to keep him in there as long as possible though cause we needed him to get through a few innings. After that second inning I said to the guys, this is a hitters game. The wind is blowing out, let’s put the bunts away and take a step back from the base stealing and just swing the bats and see if we can get back into this. And that is exactly what we did”. When asked about the semifinal round against the host team Thursday night Wills added, “We are excited. The crowds for the Maine teams games have been fantastic. We have played all the way though the best we can and now we get a chance to play in front of the biggest crowd these guys have ever played in front of. It’s gonna be a great atmosphere. We have gotten as far as we like but we would like to go further and we just gotta keep doing our thing”.
Australia will face off with the host District 3 Champs Bronco-Hermon Little League Thursday at 8 p.m.
LATIN AM 4 2 0 0 0 0 1- 7 10 3
AUSTRALIA 1 3 1 3 1 4 x- 13 12 2
WP- Lyttleton LP- Ramirez
Left on base- Latin America 9, Australia 8
