ELIZABETHVILLE — Left-handed batter Landon Mace leaned into his swing and launched a towering fly ball to right-center field.
He and the rest of his nine Upper Dauphin County teammates then had to wait for gravity to take effect.
“No, I thought it was going to hit the fence,” Mace said.
But the ball never touched it and the celebration began.
Mace’s three-run home run with no outs in the bottom of the seventh inning lifted Upper Dauphin County to a 13-10 victory over Ashland in Wednesday’s District 24 Little League 9-10-year-old Tournament championship game.
The victory gave Upper Dauphin County the district championship banner and a spot in next week’s Section 3 tournament at Pine Grove.
“Cardiac kids. Never, never say die,” Upper Dauphin manager Aaron Wegner said. “They’re the cardiac kids. I’ll tell you what, there were a couple of times that we pretty much could have gave up, threw in the towel.”
Instead, Upper Dauphin turned to a player who hadn’t pitched in the entire District 24 tournament.
Reliever Jordan Zerby surrendered two runs to Ashland in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game. But Zerby also induced an inning-ending flyout to strand three of Ashland’s 12 runners left on base in the game.
Using two forceouts by Ezariah Hite at third base to escape trouble, Zerby then threw a scoreless seventh.
At that point, Ashland was forced by Little League’s 75-pitch rule to change its pitcher.
Kieran Keninitz had struck out the side in the sixth inning to force extra innings, but Ashland manager Tom Zulkowski had to
take him off the hill. He turned to Nolan Ryan for the seventh, but Ryan walked Logan Williard and Isaac Hepler. Zulkowski replaced Ryan with Justin Ulceski.
“He hasn’t pitched much during this tournament,” Zulkowski said of Ryan. “We were running out of pitchers. Justin finished the game for us the other night and we threw him in there. He did what we asked him to do. He threw strikes.”
But on a 2-1 count, Mace turned on one of them, ending the game, but not before Wegner figured something else would happen.
“I was yelling for the kid at second to tag up,” Wegner said. “Our motto is one inning at a time, one base at a time, and we’ll go from there.”
Upper Dauphin needed that plan after Ashland jumped on Upper Dauphin starter Hepler to score six runs in the first two innings. Ashland’s Santo DeAngelo hit a two-run double in the first inning and Collin Stanakis’ two-run single off reliever Mace highlighted the visitors’ three-run second.
Upper Dauphin kept pace, also scoring six times in the opening two innings.
Mace hit his first home run, a two-run blast that cleared the batter’s eye in center field, in the opening inning. That began a night in which he went 2-for-3 with three runs and six RBIs. On the mound, Mace struck out eight in 3.2 innings in relief of starting pitcher Hepler.
Wegner said his team’s four-run rally in the second inning was critical.
“That was a big momentum shift,” he said. “But then we turn around next inning, we had two outs and they scored two more.”
Those runs on Seth Rooney’s pinch-hit double gave Ashland an 8-6 lead, which lasted until Upper Dauphin got to Keninitz in the fifth for four runs and a 10-8 lead. Two errors contributed to that rally, which included an RBI double by Hite and RBI singles by Cruz Banda and Williard, who scored four runs in the game.
Ashland then tied the score 10-10 in the sixth with two runs on four hits, one of which was an RBI infield single by Ulceski that took a wild hop off Hite.
Keninitz then fanned three straight batters in the home sixth, but Ashland could not score in the top of the seventh, meaning Upper Dauphin needed one run to win. Mace gave his team three.
“Maybe we don’t have the best team, but we made the plays when it counted,” Wegner said. “You need a little bit of luck. We had a little bit of luck, and here we are, moving on.”
For Ashland, the future is bright.
“We have nine 9-year-olds and three 10-year-olds on our team,” Zulkowski said. “I told them to remember this feeling and it’s something to work on for next year. We’ll be back here next year, I hope.”
Game Summary
District 24 Little League
9-10-year-old Championship
At Elizabethville
ASHLAND (10) — Zulkowski cf-ss 3 2 1 1, Stanakis p-cf 5 0 3 2, Keiter lf 3 1 0 0, Rooney ph-lf 1 0 1 2, Ryan 1b-p 3 1 1 0, DeAngelo rf 4 1 2 2, Wislotsky c 2 0 1 2, Groody c 1 0 0 0, Herring 2b 4 1 1 0, Whalen cr-2b 1 0 1 0, Keninitz ss-p-3b 3 2 0 0, Ulceski 3b-p 2 2 1 1. Totals 32 10 12 10.
UPPER DAUPHIN COUNTY (13) — Williard ss 2 4 1 2, Hepler p-1b 4 2 1 1, Mace 1b-p-cf 3 3 2 6, Hite 3b 4 0 2 2, Banda rf 2 0 1 1, Cole cf-lf-2b 3 0 0 0, Walker c 1 2 0 0, Nestor lf 2 1 0 0, Hobbs cf-lf 1 0 0 0, Zerby 2 1 0 0. Totals 24 13 7 12.
Ashland (4-2) 332 002 0 — 10
UDC (5-1) 240 040 3 — 13
No outs when winning run scored.
E — Ashland 3, Upper Dauphin County 2. LOB — Ashland 12, Upper Dauphin County 5. 2B — Stanakis, DeAngelo, Hite 2. HR — Mace 2. SB — Williard. S — Keninitz. SF — Mace.
Ashland IP H R ER BB K
Stanakis 2 3 6 6 5 1
Keninitz 4 3 4 0 3 7
Ryan L 0 0 2 2 2 0
Ulceski 0 1 1 1 0 0
U. Dauphin IP H R ER BB K
Hepler 1 2 6 5 3 1
Mace 3.2 4 2 2 4 8
Zerby W 2.1 6 2 2 0 1
HBP — by Hepler (Ulceski), by Mace (DeAngelo), by Zerby (Wislotsky), by Stanakis (Nestor, Williard). WP — Hepler 3, Stanakis 2. PB — Walker 2, Wislotsky. T — 2:14.