By K.D. Norris
Friday night the District 9 Southern Little League team pounded out 22 runs in an opening round game of the Michigan state Senior Little League tournament hosted by Southern Little League; Saturday, 10 runs was more then enough as three Southern pitchers combined to limit District 7 St. Glair to one run on three hits while striking out 9 in a 10-1 winners bracket win.
Southern will advance in the double-elimination tournament and play Sunday, July 16, at 4 p.m., against District 4 Commerce. Commerce won twice on Friday — 13-5 over District 3 Ypsilanti and a 16-1 win over District 2 Portage, to advance to the Sunday game. WKTV will cover the game live.
Against St. Clair, Luke Elzinga started the game on the mound for Southern and went three innings for the win, giving up no hits while striking out five and walking two. Joe Collins and Nick Lambert each went two innings in relief. Elzinga left the game with just a two-run lead, but Southern scored 2 in the fourth inning and 4 in the fifth to give the relief pitchers a cushion. Keegan Batka led the offense with three hits and five runs batted in.
On Friday, Southern gained 4 runs-batted-in from catcher John Shelton lV — including a massive solo home run to left field in the second inning — and Jack Billo and Nate Trudeau each had three RBI as the host team scored 15 runs in the first inning against District 16’s Onsted and went on to 22-1 in a 5-inning game.
WKTV will cover every District 9 game this weekend. All live games will be available on Comcast Cable Channel 24. Some games will be taped-delayed. DVDs of all games are available at WKTV.org/shop.
All games will be at the Southern Little League field complex at 2525 Kalamazoo Ave. SW, just north of 28th Avenue. The title game will be Monday at 5:30 p.m. with a second title game to follow, if necessary.
The winner of the state tournament will play in the Central Regional tournament, along with teams from nine other Midwest states, in Peru, Ill.
The Southern team is an all-star team made up of players, age 15-16, selected by the coaches from four Senior level teams who played in the Southern Little League this season.
