A second Juneau Little League team is headed to the Little League West Regional tournament in California.
Over a week after Juneau’s major softball team defeated Anchorage’s Abbott-O-Rabbit Little League to advance out of Alaska, the GCLL Junior Baseball All-Stars pulled off the same feat. Tuesday’s 5-4 win over AOR at Adair-Kennedy Field completed the series sweep. GCLL had won the previous two games of the tournament.
GCLL won six of their seven games in the Alaska Little League District 2 tournament, which pitted Juneau against Sitka and Ketchikan, to earn the right to play another week.
The regional tournament for junior baseball will be played Aug. 1-9 in San Jose, California.
Bryson Echiverri capped off the best-of-five series with a game-high three hits. Echiverri’s single in the second inning brought home teammate Chase Foster, which tied the game at 1-1.
AOR took back the lead in the third inning, but GCLL outscored their opponent 4-2 in the final four innings to come out on top, 5-4.
Brock McCormick pitched all but two outs of the game for GCLL, striking out six batters in total.
GCLL came from behind to win on Sunday in the first game of the state tournament, 7-6.
In the second game of the series, the Juneau squad left nothing to chance, dismantling AOR 18-0 in a mercy-rule shortened game of five innings.
Gastineau Channel Little League Junior Baseball All-Star Team
Garrett Bryant
Bryson Echiverri
Chase Foster
Steffen Jones
Christian Ludeman
Brock McCormick
Austin McCurley
Oliver Mendoza
Isaiah Nelson
Olin Rawson
Cody Requa
Esteban “Gaby” Soto
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the Little League West Regional Junior baseball tournament will be August 6-12 in San Bernardino, California. The tournament will be in San Jose, California, from August 1-9. The Empire regrets the error.
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nolin.ainsworth@juneauempire.com.
