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Baseball: All-Stars erase 12-run deficit, but fall in nine innings
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INDIANAPOLIS — In one of the longest — and craziest — games in Little League Midwest Region history, Rapid City’s Canyon Lake couldn’t overcome a Columbia, Mo.
12-run first inning.
It couldn’t overcome surrendering nine walks, two hit batters and two wild pitches. It couldn’t overcome Columbia pitching in extra innings.
The fact that it almost did says an awful lot about the South Dakota state champions.
Canyon Lake dropped its first game of the Midwest Region,
17-16 in extra innings to Missouri champion Daniel Boone Little League from Columbia.
Canyon Lake is still 3-1 and has qualified for the region’s single-elimination semifinals, which has been pushed back to Friday due to poor weather in Indianapolis. Canyon Lake’s seed and its opponents for the semifinal is yet to be determined. It could be a one, two or three seed and Columbia is the most likely opponent.
“If we do see them again, I would expect to see the same energy and intensity and determination from both teams,” Columbia coach Mark Pfeiffer said. “I just hope it’s the same result.”
Columbia benefited from five walks, two hit batters and two wild pitches to score its 12 runs in the first. They also hit a grand slam and a three-run home run in the inning.
“We just weren’t prepared to start the game,” Canyon Lake coach Doug Simons said. “They fought back and competed, but we just weren’t ready to start the game. When you get down 12-0 like that, it’s tough.
We started off with a couple of different pitchers and that didn’t work out.
“Then, (we were forced) to use some pitchers (that we didn’t want to use).”
Pfeiffer saw it a bit differently.
“I’ve never been in a baseball game where you’re playing teams at such a high level — and that’s an outstanding South Dakota team — and you put 12 on them in the first inning,” Pfeiffer said. “I thought that was tremendous.”
Thanks in large part to Cale Fierro and Jonah Hanson — and a nine-run second inning — Canyon Lake was able to fight back to send the game into extra innings.
Fierro went 3-for-5 in the game. He hit two home runs and had the tournament’s first triple. He knocked in four runs and scored three times.
“We expected more of him earlier, so that was good to see,” Simons said.
Hanson hit the first home run of his life on a 3-1 pitch in the fourth inning to
pull the Rapid City team to within 14-13. On the 3-0 count, Hanson took what appeared to be ball four.
The umpire called a strike, and Hanson got another chance.
He made the most of it.
“That was his first home run in a game ever,” Simons said. “That was good to see. It was some redemption, You just have to battle through (calls).”
Canyon Lake has now scored 54 runs in 24 innings, by far the most in the region.
In the loss, the South Dakota champions had 17 hits to Columbia’s 12, and six extra-base hits to the Missouri team’s two.
“I think they are an outstanding hitting team,” Pfeiffer said. “They swing at strikes and they keep their weight back, so they can hit any pitch you throw at them. We threw the kitchen sink at them and they still hit.”
Canyon Lake's Jonah Hanson watches his fourth-inning home run ball in the team's extra innings loss to Columbia, Mo. The Canyon Lake All-Stars fell to Columbia, 17-16, in nine innings. (Greg Mengelt/Special to the Journal)
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