LITTLE LEAGUE: Carson 9-10s stay undefeated

Carson City's 9-10 all-star team used a different recipe to remain undefeated in the District 1 tournament.

Instead of leading wire-to-wire as it did on Wednesday, the locals rallied for five unearned runs in the bottom of the seventh to grab a 9-7 come-from-behind victory over Reno Continental Thursday night at Governors Field.

The win sends Carson into a 4:30 game on Saturday. The local squad is halfway to the championship game.

"This was a total team effort," Carson coach Bob Stevens said. "We needed all 11 players to pull this off. Everybody picked up everybody tonight. I was more nervous tonight than on Wednesday.

"They had a couple of errors (in the fifth) and we capitalized on them. It was a great game."

It was a wild inning. Carson scored five times and Reno answered back with two of its own to make it close. In fact, Reno had runners on first and second when the final out was recorded.

Trailing 5-4 entering the fifth, Carson got the inning off to a shaky start when Dylan Roide singled, but was thrown out trying to stretch the hit into a double. Jacob Pettay grounded out, and it seemed certain Carson would be sent to the loser's bracket.

Max Fontaine reached on an error and Justin Stevens walked. Zach Houghton was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Diego Lopez was safe on an error to core Fontaine, and another error allowed two runs to score to make it 7-5.

When Kelton Heer walked, Lopez alertly stole home to make it 8-5. After Vernon Painter singled, Roide followed with a run-scoring single for a 9-5 lead. Pettay hit into a fielder's choice to end the inning.

Houghton came on in the sixth, the fourth Carson pitcher of the night.

Drew Scolari singled to left-centerfield, but was forced at second by Matt Coons. A fielder's choice put runners at first and second. Enrique Garcia followed with a two-run double to make it 9-7. Garcia moved to third on a wild pitch, and appeared to score on an infield out by Nick Myers, However, the first-base umpire ruled that Garcia was either leading off or left early, thus had to return to third. The call was made despite the fact that there was a field umpire on the left side of the diamond no more than 20 feet from third base.

Taylor Fey walked to load the bases, but Ben Olsen grounded to firt to end the game.

Carson took a 1-0 lead in the first when Lopez doubled and scored on two wild pitches. Reno scored two unearned runs to take a 2-1 lead in the second, but two Reno Continental errors (they made seven) enabled Carson to tie the game at 2.

Meyers, who went 3-for-4 for Reno, tripled home a run to give his team a 3-2 lead in teh third, but Carson stormed back with two runs and a 4-3 lead.

That set the stage for a wild finish.