Eastlake Little League defeated Bellevue West for the second straight day, this time 9-8 with four runs in the bottom half of the sixth inning, to capture the District 9 Majors championship.
Bel-West led 3-0 on a Trevor Neely home run in the top of the first and took a 7-1 lead into the bottom of the fifth, but the Eastlake bats found their stroke just in time to stave off defeat by scoring in their final two at-bats to pull out the victory.
Mark Whitley scored the first Eastlake run in the second inning and homered in the fifth, one batter after Elliot Carney did the same, to pull his team within four runs at 7-4.
“Every ball he puts in play is a rocket shot,” Bel-West manager Jeff Neely said of Whitley, who finished the tournament with 10 home runs. “You’ve got to be a great hitting team to go to state. That’s a great hitting team.”
Despite the long balls from Whitley and Carney, Eastlake entered the bottom of the final inning still trailing by a score of 8-5, but immediately loaded the bases and scored four unearned runs to take the game and tournament, walking off on a Josh Jayagaran grounder that plated the game-winning run.
Trevor Neely added a second home run on the first pitch he saw in the fourth inning for Bel-West, which Henry Pratt followed with a bomb of his own on the next pitch to push the lead to 5-1. Cole Soreano also homered for Bel-West, which took the District 9 tournament as 11-year-olds last season. Eastlake won the District 9 title two seasons ago as 10-year-olds.
The win gives Eastlake another District 9 title and also sends them to Fort Vancouver Little League Complex for the State Tournament, which begins on Saturday.
For Neely, who has been coaching Little League for the past 10 years and has been with some of the players on this All-Star team for as many as seven seasons, the loss was a bitter pill to swallow.
“I’d like to be on the other end of it,” Neely said. “But it’s a game I’ll never forget.”
