Little League Baseball: Avon rediscovers explosive offense, stays alive in Minors tourney

AVON — The Avon team that pounded the cover off the ball in the opening days of the Ohio Little League District 7 Minors (Ages 8-10) tournament is back. A night after being held to six runs by Bellevue, Avon stormed back Tuesday with a 20-hit attack as it routed Galion 24-4 in the consolation bracket final at Veterans Memorial Park. Avon found itself trailing 4-2 after two innings before it flipped the switch with a 10-run third. Brody Irwin got the inning started with a one-out single, Levi Salem followed with a double to center and the next five batters singled. Avon sent 14 batters to the plate. "We had a little bit of a slow start but the kids knew we had our backs against the wall and they really responded well," Avon coach Michael Burcewicz said. "We had some jitters to work out. This was the first time this group was in an elimination game. Once we got over that we were firing on all cylinders like we were earlier in the tournament." With Avon (3-1) needing two wins today against Bellevue to claim the district title, even more important than the strength of its lineup Tuesday was the efficiency of its pitching staff. Irwin started for Avon and went 1 2/3 innings and then Matt LaMarca and Bryce Brunner combined to throw 2 1/3 innings of relief, allowing only a hit and a walk. That they were able to keep their pitch count down means they will be eligible to throw against Bellevue. "We had great pitching today," Burcewicz said. "We kinda had a plan coming in and situationally it went almost according to plan." Brunner was moved up to sixth in the lineup after batting ninth in the first three games and responded by going 3-for-3 with two runs, two RBIs and a stolen base. "We all played better today and we were all hitting the ball well," Brunner said. "It feels great to be going to the championship game." Galion (2-2) was held to two baserunners over the final two innings. If Galion had any hopes of making a comeback, Avon squashed them by scoring 12 runs in the top of the fourth. Salem and Mariano Melendez scored twice in the inning. Melendez led Avon with four hits and was one of five players who drove in a pair of runs. "We didn't make as many errors today and I think that helped us a lot," said Donovan Burcewicz, who hit cleanup and went 2-for-2 with a walk, two RBIs and three runs. "When we're able to shut them down it gets everyone more excited to come up and score more runs and hopefully run-rule them." Burcewicz and Keegan Shaughnessy, who had a single and a pair of runs, are the two holdovers from last year's Avon Minors team that beat Bellevue 9-2 in Shelby to win a district title. "Our confidence was kinda down so it was really big to build it back up in this game," Donovan Burcewicz said. "We have to keep the intensity up to win (today). I think we can do it." The championship game is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. If a second game is necessary, it would begin approximately 25 minutes after the first game. Contact Todd Shapiro at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.