Other Laguna Beach teams were soon to follow the elimination trail. Manager Andy Hauer’s 10/11 club was outlasted by Northwood, 14-12, to also be eliminated at Woodfield Park.
Also Monday, the 11/12 Little League division team managed by Mark Linton was blanked by Newport Beach, 10-0. And Tuesday, it was the 9/10 squad managed by Eric Wills that fell to Newport Beach American, 7-0.
But Redfearn sees things trending up for Laguna Beach.
“The good news is that this is probably the strongest 13/14-year-old group that Laguna has seen come through,” Redfearn said. “They’re going to make an impact at the high school. I know that the coach is looking forward to having them come up there.”
Against Irvine, the Laguna Beach Juniors actually scored the first two runs of the game. Robert Clemons and Cameron Hauer scored the runs, the first coming on an RBI groundout by Blake Hester and the second on an RBI single from Eli Cassard.
Irvine, unfazed, scored five times in the bottom of the first. And after that first inning, the only other time Laguna Beach got a hit was when Cole Kesler hit a ground-rule double in the fourth.
“The wind got out of our sails, no matter how much we tried to pump them up again,” Redfearn said.
“The truth is, I can’t take anything away from that Irvine team. That pitcher [Jeff Caldeira] was the real deal; he’s a travel-ball player. He can compete, and he pitched a heck of a game.”
?About an hour later on the adjacent field, it was the 10/11 club that was knocked out by Northwood. Laguna Beach was down 7-5 after three innings, then took an 8-7 lead on Will McInerny’s RBI single. But Northwood came back to score three times in the bottom of the fourth.
Laguna Bach pulled within 12-11 in the fifth on Tyler Alter’s two-RBI single, but couldn’t get closer.
McInerny and Michael Shurtleff each had four hits for Laguna Beach.
“I thought we would win,” McInerny said. “We just had a couple of errors.”
