North Bothell Little League busted the baseball door off its hinges with seven runs in the top of the fifth inning en route to a 13-3 victory Alaska on Tuesday night in an elimination game at the Northwest Regional in San Bernardino, California.
The locals will next play Montana in another loser-out game at 4 p.m. Wednesday. Both teams sport 2-1 records.
At Al Houghton Stadium in an ESPN+-livestreamed game on Tuesday, North Bothell extended its lead to 13-0 in a fifth inning that featured a two-run homer from Ethan Wiley, RBI singles from Zach Daniel and Blake Skinner and an RBI triple from Dominic Wilson.
With two outs and two on in the top of the third inning, Cayden Christopherson hammered a three-run homer to dead center to put North Bothell up, 3-0. Skinner and Jack Smith each singled to set up the dinger.
North Bothell scored three more runs in the fourth to go up 6-0 on an RBI double by Nolan LeDoux and a two-RBI single by Christopherson.
The game ended in the bottom of the fifth inning on the 10-run rule. The Alaskan squad from Sitka scored three runs in the inning and had the bases loaded with two outs. It was then that North Bothell shortstop Wilson snagged a grounder and threw the ball to Skinner at second for a force to close out the contest.
North Bothell finished with 15 hits and Alaska had three. Three Bothell pitchers — Kody Moyer, Jacob Zbiegien and Aksel Keim — combined for 12 strikeouts.
After allowing a leadoff single in the bottom of the first inning, Moyer struck out six consecutive batters. Moyer had eight strikeouts after three, an inning that featured a solid play at short on a hopper by Wilson and throw out at first. Moyer finished with nine strikeouts and was replaced by Zbiegien in the fourth and he fanned two to end the inning. Keim closed out the game in the fifth.
“Tonight was a solid team win. Keys to success were pitchers throwing a lot of strikes and we put the ball in play throughout the lineup. It is fun to watch the boys compete and execute. They seem comfortable with the cameras and environment and have had a good time watching their games back at the dorms,” said manager Danny Keim.
