Baseball: Carson Valley falls short in title game

After rattling off five stellar wins to advance to the district championship, the Carson Valley Little League 10-11-year-old All-Stars ran into a familiar foe Monday night.

While Carson Valley had taken an impressive 17-12 win over the perennial powerhouse Washoe All-Stars earlier in the week, Washoe bounced back to defeat Carson Valley 17-6 Monday to claim the Nevada District 1 Championship at Ranchos Aspen Park in Gardnerville.

With the win, Washoe advances to the Nevada Little League State Tournament next week in Las Vegas.

Washoe scored six runs on just three hits in the top of the first inning, capitalizing on a number of defensive miscues for Carson Valley to grab the early momentum.

Carson Valley, on the other hand, struggled to get anything going offensively, managing just two hits over the first three innings while Washoe built a 9-0 lead.

The bats came alive for Carson Valley in the bottom of the fourth when Cody Azevedo led off with a single to center. Ricky Simons and Tanner Valenzuela were then hit by pitches on the following at bats to load the bases.

Azevedo came in to score on a passed ball with Ben Nolting at bat, and Simons later scored on Nolting's ground out to second. Michael Mejia belted a line drive to left that bounced over the left field fence, bringing Johnny Hoyt, running for Valenzuela, around to score.

Jared Rooker reached on an error, moving Mejia to third base, and Jesse Cawthon hit a ground ball to third, which allowed Mejia to score.

Jacob Evans extended the rally, sending a single into the outfield and bringing Rooker home to cut the score to 9-5 before Washoe got out of the inning on a ground ball to third.

Washoe wasted little time responding, rapping out 10 hits in the next 11 batters to score eight runs and extend its lead to 17-5.

After two ground outs to open the bottom of the fifth, Carson Valley put one more rally together as Hoyt and Zach Davies singled up the middle.

A pair of Washoe errors on the throw back to the infield allowed Hoyt to score, but the rally ended on the next batter as Washoe got out of inning after foiling an attempted steal.

Carson Valley's Daniel Owens did an exception job on the mound in relief after coming in with the bases loaded and six runs already on the board in the first inning. He struck out the first batter he saw to get out of the inning and held Washoe to three runs over the next three innings.

In the top of the third, he surrendered a single and a walk to open the inning but came back to strike out the next three batters with runners on second and third.

He finished with six strikeouts and one walk.

Nolting had one strikeout in the top of the fifth to get Carson Valley out of the inning.

Owens and Logan Fencl had first-inning singles for Carson Valley as well.

Carson Valley finished the tournament with a 5-1 record. They defeated South Tahoe and Reno National in the elimination bracket to advance to the championship game.

The Carson Valley 11-12-year-old All-Stars wrapped up pool play in its district tournament as the No. 2 seed after beating Reno American West 12-4 last week.

They lost to Reno Contenintal in the first round of the elimination bracket on Saturday, however.