The Northwest Regional Tournament kicked off this past Saturday in San Bernardino, with a matchup between West Valley Little League from Idaho and South Hill Little League from Washington. The high stakes game fired up the crowd as both teams fought to take the lead, but ultimately resulted with West Valley winning 6-4.
With a scratchy voice, catcher, Owen Westly, explained how their team stays calm under pressure.
“We’ve been together for five years, we believe in everybody and a couple times this summer we’ve been down by more than that and we came back.”
Coach, Kevin Louwsma, also explained his perspective.
“We fought through district and state every year. Previously we played older teams and won, and so we’ve always had that grit and determination. I had no doubt in my mind getting down 2-3 that we were going to be able to come back from that because that’s normal for us. We may get down, but our boys never give up, and so that’s what’s good about us.”
The second game of the tournament was between Bend North Little League from Oregon and Abbott-O-Rabbit Little League from Alaska. The teams were tied 2-2 after the first inning, but Bend North took the win after scoring an additional four runs, to make the final score 6-2. Starting pitcher, Chase Johnson, explained how he calms his nerves during a tough game.
“What I do before games is I practice breathing, and when I feel like things aren’t going my way I kind of breathe and restart my mind so I can go back to throwing strikes.”
Matt Gylling, Bend North’s manager, shared the team's story on how they reached Regionals.
“It’s been a long journey. As 10’s we got second in state, as 11’s we got second in state, and so we finally broke through and won it this year. We’ve just come together as a team and it's been great. Just at state this year, we lost the first game and had to battle back through the losers brackets. We won five straight, so they just persevere and battle, and they know they’re never out of a game.”
The Western Regional Tournament started on Sunday, with a game between Central East Maui Little League from Hawaii and Land Park Pacific Little League from Northern California. Hawaii had great support as long-time fan, Kevin Oamilda, performed a haka for the crowd. After nearly eighty pitches from Evan Tavares and a homerun from Gabriel Laloulu, Hawaii won with a score of 2-0. Manager, Daniel Bolduc, spoke to us after the game.
“One of my favorite parts about coaching these kids is how they buy into what we have to teach. We got to be hard on them, right, but they never quit.”
Follow along as we speak exclusively to the Southern California team from Eastvale, and cover their Round 1 game and journey.
