A pair of White Rock-South Surrey baseball squads were victorious at district championships last week, as both the nine-year-old and 12-year-old squads edged their Lower Mainland rivals for gold.
In the championship game of the 12-year-old tournament, which was held at Langley’s City Park, White Rock defeated Whalley 6-3. The win qualified the Peninsula team for provincials, which are to be held July 21-28 in Trail.
White Rock gave up three runs to Whalley in the first inning of the title game, but clawed back to tie the game, scoring two runs in the bottom of the first and one more in the fourth. White Rock eventually took the lead in the fifth inning, when Perrin Finley blasted a three-run home run.
Pitcher Adam van den Brink earned the win on the mound for White Rock.
“It was just a great team performance,” said White Rock coach John Hogg.
In the round-robin portion of the tournament, White Rock went 3-1, opening with a 5-3 loss to Whalley before winning three straight – 5-4 over Langley, 11-0 over North Langley and 9-3 over Coquitlam.
In the semifinals, White Rock beat Langley 11-0.
The winner of the provincial tournament will advance to national championships in Edmonton later this summer, and from there, the national champion will move on to Williamsport, Penn. for the prestigious Little League World Series in August.
White Rock has twice represented Canada at the World Series, first in 2007 and again in 2008.
The nine-year-old Selects team, meanwhile, won the District 3 title in a come-from-behind 7-6 win against the host Langley Selects in the final.
White Rock trailed 6-2 heading into the bottom of the fifth inning, but scratched out a pair of runs – without getting a base hit – to bridge the gap to 6-4. Then in the bottom of the sixth and final inning, White Rock plated three more runs – two of which game on a game-tying double by Kole Turner – to escape with the one-run victory.
Alen Sugimoto, Colin Driscoll and Kendall Wick combined to pitch the final game for White Rock.