Little League Baseball: Avon erupts with 10-run inning, bounces back to win 11U district title

NEW LONDON — It took awhile for Avon to get going in its bid to win the Little League 11U district championship, but it put together 10 runs and 11 hits in the fourth inning of Wednesday's second game to win the championship 12-2. "I don't know," Avon coach Mike Burcewicz said when asked to explain the outburst. "They caught fire at the right time. The guys were picking each other up. We shook up the lineup a little bit and it seemed to make a difference." Avon moves on to the state tournament starting July 11 at Avon. The state tournament rotates among the districts, and it just happens to be Avon's turn to host. Avon, which won Monday's first game of the best-of-three format, dropped the opener Wednesday 8-5 and was tied at 2 going into the top of the fourth in the second game. Things didn't look promising. That all changed quickly. Bryce Hubert started the inning with a single, and with one out Matthew LaMarca drew a walk that started a chain reaction. The next 10 batters reached with hits and flew around the bases as Bellevue had trouble in the field. When the dust cleared, Avon had its big lead and Jack Sittinger, one of the 11 batters who hit safely in the fourth, finished the job on the mound in the bottom of the inning to give Avon the run-rule victory. Sittinger struck out the last two hitters he faced. "It felt good because last year we lost to (Bellevue)," said Sittinger, who struck out six in four innings. "We felt like we were playing for each other." "Hitting is contagious," said Burcewicz. "Put the ball in play, good things happen. Sometimes the other team makes some mistakes, and we took advantage of it. We followed it up with a walk or a hit or a stolen base and that snowballed into the inning we had." In a 12-man batting order where all the players hit even though only nine play defense, Avon sent 14 batters to the plate in the fourth. Besides Hubert and Sittinger, Conner Porcher, Cole Finefrock, Valentine Ruiz, Hayes Jarrett, Benjamin Grimm, Donovan Burcewicz, Mariano Melandez, Keegan Shaughnessy and Hubert again all reached base with hits and many times advanced on throwing or fielding errors. "The whole team put a lot of work in," said Finefrock. "We had a lot of practice. This feels great." Avon scored single runs in the first and second innings. Melendez singled, stole second and third and scored on Hubert's single in the first inning. Grimm reached on an error to start the second and advanced to third on a pair of wild pitches. With two outs, he scored on a wild pitch. In the first game, Matthew LaMarca, Sittinger, Hubert, Burcewicz, Shauhnessy, Porcher and Finefrock had hits. Avon had a 3-1 lead after the first inning but couldn't hold it. "I give all the credit to these guys," Mike Burcewicz said. "The first game was a battle and the second game was a battle except for that one big inning. (Bellevue) got us last year so this feels really good." Contact Tim Gebhardt at (440) 329-7135 or timothygeb@msn.com.