The Long Beach PONY 14U All-Stars maintained its dominance this summer by taking the Super-Region tournament championship on Monday night with a 14-2 win over Tecolote in Lakeside.
“This team is playing with great confidence and pride, enjoying their time playing together, and wanting to extend it as long as possible,” coach Ken Jakemer said. “We have to maintain our focus on playing within ourselves, to the best of our ability, and the rest will take care of itself. We have the pieces we need.”
Long Beach PONY advances to Zone for the first time in two years. The last time Long Beach won Zone was 2012 when they went on to won their second World Series in five years.
The local PONY All-Stars won all four of their Super-Region games by a combined score 56-15. Ryan Skjonsby led Long Beach with 10 hits and nine RBIs in the tournament. Myles Patton scored a team-high 11 runs while leading the squad with 5.2 innings pitched. Patton, Jack Dhein, Jackson Haberland and Ryan Burack picked up the wins on the mound.
All but two Long Beach players scored a run in the tournament. They also stole a total of 25 bases in four games, and were only caught stealing once.
“We have very good team speed,” Jakemer said. “Our offensive production flows through the entire order. Everyone has a confident, focused, and disciplined approach.”
Long Beach PONY will travel to West Hills on Thursday to begin the Zone tournament. They start against South Sound from Washington at 5 p.m.
“Everyone is contributing, and our team chemistry improved significantly after a roster change we recently made,” Jakemer said. “We are now truly ’14-strong’ mirroring the theme from our 2008 World Series Championship team.”
Long Beach PONY 14U All-Stars: Ryan Burack, Adam Cramer, Sam DeCarlo, Jack Dhein, Jake Ehmann, Ryan Geck, Jackson Haberland, Jesse Kolodny, Myles Patton, Charlie Royle, Israel Santillan, Ryan Skjonsby, Robert Voss, Brendan Wilkinson. Manager Ken Jakemer. Coaches Matt Heavin, Dan Leavitt, John Haberland and Darrel Icenogle.
