Two championship organizations entered the 2009 Washington 11-12-Year-Old Little League Majors state tournament on hot streaks before the District 7 West Seattle Little League All-Stars chilled District 3 Centralia with a 13-5 opening round conquest at Art Mikelsen Field on a warm and muggy Saturday, July 25.
"I was afraid of a letdown after all we went through at district," said West Seattle manager John Mackenzie. "It was nice to score in the first (inning). The keys were the back-to-back doubles. We rolled after that. We had a couple of good defensive plays by second baseman Alex Mackenzie and an amazing 11-pitch at bat by Kevin Simmons."
West Seattle rapidly rolled to the deciding tallies en route to rotating the Hub City boys into the loser-out bracket.
After capturing a 2-0 first inning lead on a wild pitch and passed ball, the West Siders devastated District 3 with a stunning second inning barrage.
Alex Mackenzie led off with his 11-pitch walk and was quickly joined on the bases by walks to Sam Cook and Alex Coats. Mackenzie welcomed the new Centralia pitcher by drilling a two-run double to left field. Two outs and one walk later, David Meehan drilled a double for two additional runs and a 6-0 dominance. Marco Calderon's sacrifice fly delivered another run for West Seattle.
West Seattle scored a pair of third inning tallies by way of a Griffin Bills single as the margin ballooned to 9-0.
Centralia crept within 9-3 on a three-run third inning, but West Seattle countered with two runs in the fourth. Meehan's double followed by a two-base infield error accounted for one run ahead of a Simmons RBI single.
In the fifth inning, Meehan struck a two-run triple to close out the West Seattle game scoring.
"I felt like I was seeing the ball very well," said Meehan, who batted 3-for-4 with a triple, two doubles and four RBI. "They were great pitches to hit and I was getting my hips through the swing."
Centralia delayed the West Seattle victory celebration for one inning by scoring a pair of fifth inning runs.
For West Seattle, Alex Coats pitched the first 2 1/3 innings and allowed one run before Calderon took the mound and finished the third inning.
"If we didn't win this game, we would have to play too many games,"Coats said.
Izac Bauer pitched a scoreless fourth inning before Simmons mopped up in the fifth and sixth innings.
"I felt confident that I could trust my infield to back me up," Bauer stated.
