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Sports

Babe Ruth: Tri-Valley 13s' Tournament Run Comes To End

Tri-Valley drops two games at Pacific Southwest Regional Tournament.

Torrance (Southern California) 10, Tri-Valley 4 (Game 1)

Hawaii 14, Tri-Valley 5 (Game 2)

Third round, Babe Ruth 13-year-old Pacific Southwest Regional

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Surprise, Ariz.

The Star: Tyler Lonestar scored two runs against Hawaii, the only player with a multi-run outing in the second game.

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The Turning Point: Hawaii added four runs in the fourth inning, making it 11-4, a deficit Tri-Valley never recovered from.

The Quote: "It's a treat to be with these kids, teaching them the game," said Tri-Valley manager Ken Franco.

Who's Next?: The Tri-Valley All-Stars will have a few weeks off then return to their respective regular teams for fall league the week after Labor Day.

The Bottom Line: The heat and lack of depth at pitching affected Tri-Valley.

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It was a perfect storm the Tri-Valley 13-year-old All-Stars were unable to weather.

The combination of the scorching heat, fielding errors, rescheduled playing time, back-to-back games and offensively-charged opponents proved to be their undoing at the Babe Ruth Pacific Southwest Regional Tournament on Friday.

The first game, which Tri-Valley lost to Torrance (Southern California) 10-4, was pushed up from 5:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. as a precaution against thunderstorms forecasted for later in the day.

Starter Justin Hooper, who was coming off Tuesday's complete-game shutout, was pulled after two innings because of dizziness.

"It was 112 (degrees), and I think it got to the kids a little bit," said Tri-Valley manager Ken Franco. "We ran into a good Torrance team. They hit the snot out of the ball. We, for the first time, made a few errors, uncharacteristically, and it cost us the ballgame."

The hot bats of Hawaii and lack of bullpen depth in the second game, which Tri-Valley lost 14-5, didn't help.

"We didn't expect to play two, so we had to go into our bullpen and they hit our bullpen pretty good," Franco said.

Hawaii put up three runs in the first inning, one run in the second, three runs in the third, four runs in the fourth and three more runs in the sixth for which Tri-Valley had no answer.

"Everything we pitched: inside, outside, off-speed, curve, they were hitting it," Franco said. "They were an incredibly well-balanced hitting team."

Tyler Lonestar scored two runs, while Trent Kravitz, Jacob Kinney, Matt Snyder and Matt Haworth each had an RBI in the second game.

"We had a great run, and I'm proud of all of them," Franco said. "It was a good summer."

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