Oregon knocks out West Seattle in Little League semi-finals to end season

Photo courtesy Jamie Trigg.[/caption] By Luke Olson Sports Editor The West Seattle Little Leaguers are headed home– and they better be prepared to soak in all the praise and achievement from quite a historic run to the Little League World Series. Yes, they fell short to Oregon, 7-3 and were eliminated from regionals—but once a little leaguer myself, my teammates and I always desired to be part of that run to the World Series. And I can tell you these kids might be subdued now, but they will look back and cherish that journey with winning districts, then state—and making it to the semi-finals in regionals down in California. And their head coach, Mike Fahy, said it best. “This was such a memorable and magical season,” he said. “It included high level baseball, team building, serving at a food bank in Sedro Woolley, and many fun team outings. We met so many great people along the way and we really appreciated the local community and the state of Washington cheering us on during our journey.” “I’m so proud of what we accomplished together as a team.” It was the first time West Seattle Little League won state and advanced to regionals. As for the game, West Seattle took a drubbing in the second inning off of pitchers, Miles Gosztola and Caden Fahy—especially with wild pitches. Three times to be exact Oregon scored on them. It started with a lead-off triple and followed with a free pass to first base. An error by the first baseman scored one to even the game, but two batters later—a wild pitch scored two to take a 3-1 lead. Fahy would sub in for Gosztola, and another wild pitch brought a run in and a single had Oregon with a comfortable 5-1 lead. And in the third, a wild pitch from Fahy scored one. “It was tough to have that kind of start,” Fahy said. “The boys fought hard, but our bats just didn’t wake up.” West Seattle started off the way they would like—getting on board first. Tristan Buehring led off the first inning with a triple and scored on an error later. There on after, they struggled getting runners in scoring position—not having one until their last hopes at improbable comeback, when Gosztola doubled to start the inning. Matthew Henning-Dierckx followed with a homerun once again in back-to-back games to cut the lead to four—but Oregon put out the next three batters to end the game. “We are definitely disappointed with the way we hit,” Fahy stated. “We had a handful of hits, but we felt like we could have done quite a bit of damage against that pitcher. That’s baseball.” Here’s video of the full game: [embed]https://youtu.be/mXRb2xBAXEc[/embed]]]>