Not this year

There won’t be a District 1 Little League championship banner flying at Governors Field next year.

The Carson 9-10 all-star squad, the last remaining hope, dropped a 6-5 decision to Truckee Friday night in the loser’s bracket final. The Carson squad plays for third place Sunday at 10:30 a.m.

The Carson 11-12 squad was sent packing after a tough 2-1 loss to Carson Valley, and ditto for the 10-11 squad which had the tying run thrown out at the plate in the bottom of the sixth in a 15-14 loss to South Tahoe.

In the 9-10 game, Truckee rolled to a quick 4-0 lead, taking advantage of two errors, a walk and singles by Dylan Sumner in the first and Dom Brown and Nick Paulson in the second.

Carson cut the lead in half with two in the bottom of the second on a single by Austin Garcia and a two-out error. The locals made it 4-3 in the third when Nolan Pedersen walked, went to second on a wild pitch and scored on a single by Colin Boeckman.

The score stayed that way until the bottom of the fifth when Carson pushed across the tying run. Kincaid Gill hit a one-out single and Keegan Ferris hit a double. Gill took a wide turn around third and got in a rundown. A Truckee fielder impeded his progress, and the umpires after a short discussion awarded Gill home.

Truckee scored twice in the sixth on a two-out error and ensuing double by Cole Benefiel which made it 6-4. Carson pushed across an unearned run in the bottom of the inning when Justin McCraw was safe on an error and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Yaki Glenn, but that was it.

Gill had two hits, while Tristan Hawkins, Pedersen, Garcia and Ferris added one each.

The 11-12 game was a classic pitching battle between Carson’s Tanner Hunt and Carson Valley’s James Hubbard. Both pitchers threw just 75 pitches. Hunt fanned 11 and gave up three hits, while Hubbard yielded just two hits, fanned six and walked three.

The game was tied at 1 entering the sixth.

Carson had taken a 1-0 lead in the first on an Eddie Tierney homer, and Carson Valley matched it in the fourth when Gabe Foster struck out, but reached first when the ball got by the catcher to the backstop. Hunt retired the next batter, but then Tyler Rudd ripped a hard ground ball which took a bad hop over the head of Tierney at short and got past left fielder Trey Thomas. Foster scored all the way from first.

Carson Valley pushed across the go-ahead run on two errors, a great bunt by Rudd and a passed ball. In the bottom of the inning, Tierney walked, moved to second on an infield out and to third on a wild pitch before Hubbard struck out Alan Mayoral to end the game.

Carson failed to get a hit over the last five innings, and Hubbard retired 14 of the last 16 hitters he faced.

The 10-11 game was a wild affair. There were only two zeros on the scoreboard, one by each team, the entire game.

Carson scored eight in the first to wipe out South Tahoe’s 4-0 lead. South Tahoe scored 10 runs over the next three innings to lead 14-10 after four innings. South Tahoe added a run in the top of the fifth to make it 15-10 when Carson started to make some noise.

The locals scored three times in the fifth on just two hits, singles by DeCarlo Quintana and Cooper Eaton.

In the sixth, a walk, a single by Eaton and an error on Caleb Morgan’s ground ball cut the South Tahoe lead to 15-14. Aden McNabb followed with a deep drive to center. Eaton got a late break, not sure if the ball was going to be caught or not, and was thrown out at home on a close play. The next batter was retired to end the game.

Eaton and Quintana had three hits apiece to lead Carson.