BELLEFONTE — Having played together for most of their lives, the Bellefonte Little League All-Stars team came to play at Webster Field for the final time July 7. The State College team had battled through four straight wins in the major tournament’s lower bracket in order to reach the championship game.
This Bellefonte team had won both of their last two district championship games as they aged through Little League and were one game away from the first Bellefonte Little League three-peat.
With a record crowd gathered around, State College faced a tough situation. Win, and they would have to play a second and final game, this time at their home field. Lose, and they would have to go home.
The game kicked off with Bellefonte’s Josh Brown on the mound pitching to his counterpart, State College’s Jack Messina. After giving up a leadoff walk, Brown struck out the next two batters and Messina was picked off on the base paths.
Brown would take over from there. In 4 2/3 innings, he struck out five batters, gave up only one walk and one bean ball and left three runners on in six hits.
Behind him, Brown’s defense prevented contact from becoming hits. At shortstop, Luke Fisher made more than one difficult play over to first and just about every fielder saw tough strikes that they managed to convert to save a hit.
“There’s always things to work on,” said head coach Jake Corman. “We focus mostly on defense. One of the reasons we took 13 players is so we could always have our best defense on the field at all times.
“We had two shut outs (in the district tournament) and two runs this time. The defense has really been our strong point so we’ll continue to focus on that. Hitting comes and goes at times but hitting travels well, as they say and we need to continue working on it.’
“(Producing on the mound) really isn’t that hard because our defense is just phenomenal,” said Brown.
Bellefonte’s batters made it clear early that they weren’t planning on visiting State College. In the bottom of the second inning, two singles back-to-back and a walk filled the bases for Caleb Stock who earned a walk himself to drive in the opening run. Fisher followed up the walk with a sacrifice to left field. The home team led 2-0 at the end of the second and it picked up from there.
“I was just happy that our team could put runs on the board,” said Fisher after the second inning. “I was happy we scored more than them and won that inning.”
Each of the first five Bellefonte batters reached base. Following a run-scoring error and an RBI walk, Triston Heckman and Trevor Johnson hit back-to-back RBI singles to increase the lead to 6-0 at the end of the third.
Though State College replaced Messina with Ian Marshall, more runners circled the bases in the fourth. Braedyn Kormanik and Brown hit singles, followed by an RBI fielder’s choice by Stock and an RBI single by Fisher.
In the top of the fifth, State College was behind 9-0 and desperately needed a boost. Brown had kept any and all momentum away from the visitors. After two quick outs, Messina hit a single to center field. First baseman Kody Aurandt walked to home plate and hit a rocket over the left field fence.
After giving up another single, Brown was replaced by Kormanik who pitched the final four scoreless outs, striking out one, giving up one hit and one walk.
With the win, Bellefonte moves on to the Section 4 Tournament hosted by Pennsylvania District 11.
“I’ve won it two years in a row now and I want to make it a third,” said Brown on the upcoming tournament. “I want to go out strong.
“I think we can win states, and maybe go to the Little League World Series.”
Their first game will be held Saturday, July 14, at 4 p.m. in Huntingdon. Bellefonte will take on the winner of the District 6 Major Division Championship.
