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Sports

Santa Monica East All-Stars Beat Malibu 13-6

The 10 & 11-year-olds reach the final of the winner's bracket in the District playoffs.

No matter what happens the rest of the way, the Santa Monica East 10-11 All-Stars have proven that they can hit the ball as well as any team in the District 25 Baseball Tournament.

Manager John Solberg's enthusiastic squad capitalized on three Malibu errors in the top of the third inning to break open a close game and win 13-6 on Friday evening in Ladera Heights, setting up a winner's bracket finals showdown against traditional powerhouse West Los Angeles next Thursday.

"This is a pretty extraordinary hitting team and much of the credit for that goes to coach [Avery] Ware," Solberg said. "He throws hard in batting practice and gives them fastballs, curve balls and changeups. He mixes speeds, he mixes locations and he does a lot of situational drills so when we play a real game there's no scenario they haven't already faced numerous times in practice. So I never worry about my kids hitting the ball."

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It took Santa Monica East a few innings to warm up in its 10-5 win over Culver City on June 28, but this time it came out swinging from the get-go against Malibu pitcher Quincy Allen. Brandon Iglesias reached on an error, Michael Finkelstein hit an infield single and Joey Recinos got plunked on the helmet to load the bases with one out in the top of the first inning.

With two outs, Nick Solberg delivered the first of several clutch hits for Santa Monica East, singling through the box to score two runs. Marcus Gee followed with a walk but a pop up to the pitcher ended the inning.

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Like his counterpart had in the top of the inning, Santa Monica starter John Schwengel faced some early adversity in the bottom half, giving up a leadoff single and a walk. An error loaded the bases for Malibu, but Schwengel struck out Tanner Gottlieb looking and enticed Kayden Lynch to swing at strike three in the dirt. The ball skipped to the backstop and Chase Cook was called safe sliding into home plate from third.

After a walk loaded the bases once more, Schwengel hit S.J. Murphy to force home the tying run. However, he got out of the jam when Allen was tagged out at the plate trying to score from third on a wild pitch to end the inning.

Iglesias put Santa Monica East back in front with the second clutch hit of the game, double to left that scored Nick Trapani. With the bases loaded, Nick Solberg struck out looking and Santa Monica East had a 3-2 lead. Malibu threatened to score in the bottom half but Allen hit into a fielder's choice to Schwengel, who threw home in time to get Jake Hughes at the plate. 

"That was a huge play because it kept us in the lead and we carried that momentum into the next inning," John Solberg said. "And just like last game, it was our bench guys who started the rally."

Andrew Houston and Ben Kordan were inserted into the order in the third inning and both rewarded their coaches' faith, drawing back-to-back walks on 3-2 counts. Kordan got caught in a pickle and Houston alertly scored on the play.

Goldman reached base on a fielder's choice, Nick Trapani ended up at second after his long fly ball was dropped in right field, and Iglesias reached on an error, allowing Goldman to score. Trapani scored on a throwing error, then Recinos and Schwengel hit back-to-back RBI singles and suddenly Santa Monica East had a commanding 8-2 lead.  

Malibu got a run back on a fielder's choice in the bottom of the third.

In the fourth, Santa Monica East had chances to widen the gap, but Kordan was thrown out at home trying to score on a single by Jared Goldman, who later was tagged out trying to steal home.

"At first I thought it was going to be a really close game," Goldman said. "We hit the ball really well. We're really unpredictable because everyone on our team is really good."

Houston, who had relieved Schwengel in the third, needed only seven pitches to get out of the fourth inning on two pop-ups wide of third and a pop-up to first.

Santa Monica East scored four times in the fifth to increase its lead 12-3. Recinos, who hit a home run in Santa Monica East's victory over Culver City, scored on a clutch base hit by Nick Solberg, Schwengel came home on a fielder's choice groundout by Owen Hallinan, then Goldman tripled to right to score Solberg and Trapani's bloop single behind the shortstop scored Goldman.

"I hit it to the opposite field," Goldman said of his fifth-inning triple. "I kept my head down, just swung and the right fielder thankfully missed it." 

Malibu crept closer in the bottom of the fifth when Chase Irons and Murphy both reached base on errors with two outs. William Tamkin followed with a double to the wall in right center, scoring both runners to make it 12-5.

Santa Monica East added an insurance run in the sixth when Kordan singled to right to score Jesse Lares, who then took the hill to try to close out the game. 

Trailing 13-5 heading into its final at-bat, however, Malibu refused to go quietly. Cook led off with a triple to right field and scored on Ben Cohen's grounder to second base. Allen doubled, but Lares got a strikeout and a grounder to first ended the game.   

"It was a complete team effort," said John Solberg, who stuck around after the game to cheer on Santa Monica West, which played West Los Angeles in the second semifinal. "Schwengel did his part in the beginning, Houston got us through the middle innings and Lares finished it off."

Perhaps most pleasing to Solberg, however, is that everyone on the team of 10- and 11-year-olds saw significant playing time.

"We had 46 plate appearances, but every kid played three innings of defense  and had at least two at-bats," he said. "As a coach that's gratifying and mentally it keeps all of the players in the game." 

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