Little League All Stars: Danville 11s One Win Away From Section 3 Title

Danville 4, Palo Alto 0

The Star: Danville's Darroch Koel had himself a day. Koel had two hits on the day — including a line drive home run to give Danville a 2-0 lead in the first. Koel also threw three and a third scoreless innings allowing just one hit, while striking out five.

The Turning Point: Koel said he didn't get all of it. Coach Mark Dawson said Koel got every ounce of it. Either way, Koel's mammoth first inning two-run home run was key to Danville's victory. There was no doubt the ball was going to clear the fence, but what made the round-tripper all the more impressive was that Koel hit the ball against the wind.

The Quote: "We're very pleased with the result of today," Dawson said. "From top to bottom, we played very well today. Aside from a couple mental mistakes here and there, we did an amazing job today."

What's next? Danville will be able to rest on Tuesday before playing for the California Section 3 11-year-old title on Wednesday. The game will be played at Veterans Memorial Park in Union City at 5:30 p.m.  

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The Major League Baseball record for longest scoreless streak by a pitching staff is 56 innings, set by the 1903 Pittsburgh Pirates.

Over 100 years later, the Danville Little League 11-year-old All Star team is putting together an impressive streak of its own.

With its 4-0 victory over Palo Alto in the winners' bracket championship of the Section 3 tournament on Monday, Danville's pitching staff ran its scoreless streak to 34-straight innings. Danville now sits one win away from the Section 3 championship.

"We're really excited about playing for the championship," Koel said. "We've played some pretty tough teams to get here, however. This Palo Alto team put up a good fight."

Koel threw brilliantly to start for Danville, throwing three and a third one-hit innings. Koel struck out five, all of which were looking.

Nick Venezia relieved Koel to finish the fourth before Connor Redmond, channeling his inner Mariano Rivera, closed the game out for Danville's sixth-straight shutout victory.

Coach Mark Dawson attributed the streak to both strong pitching and rock solid defense.

"I'm obviously pleased with the performance of our pitchers these past couple games," he said. "The defense has been incredible over the games as well. We just try to play solid fundamental baseball all the time."

As impressive as the scoreless streak is, Dawson said he couldn't care less about keeping the streak going.

"I don't think there is any pressure on our pitchers to keep the zeros on the board," he said. "I keep reminding the boys that a team is going to score a run off us, it's going to happen. But I keep reminding them it's not a matter of when it happens, but what to do when it happens."

Preventing the other team from scoring is only half the game — Danville still needed to score. Koel scored two of Danville's four runs, including his long home run.

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Danville 4, Palo Alto 0, 

Palo Alto 000000 — 0 3 0    

Danville 20200x — 4 4 0   

Palo Alto (h-ab-r) — Stern 1-3-0, Chang 0-1-0, Hull 0-3-0, Olmstead 1-2-0, Schoeben 0-3-0, Cleasby 0-1-0, Maser 0-1-0, Snodgrass 1-3-0, Racz 0-1-0, Smale 0-1-0, Tracy 0-2-0

Danville — Venezia 0-2-0, Bowman 0-1-1, Dawson 0-3-0, Koel 2-2-2, Morgan 0-3-0, Redmond 0-2-0, Lonestar 0-1-0, Bartnick 0-1-0, Batza 1-1-0, Facteau 1-1-0, Banks 0-1-0, De Flores 0-1-0

Pitching

Palo Alto — Hull 2 1/3 IP, 4 R, 3 ER, 3 H, 3 K, 3 BB; Smale 2 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 0 K, 3 BB; Scoeben 2/3 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 1 K, 0 BB

Danville — Koel 3 1/3 IP, o R, 1 H, 5 K, 2 BB, 1 HP; Venezia 1 2/3 IP; 0 R, 0 H, 1 K, 0 BB; Redmond 1 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 2 K, 0 BB    

Hitting

2B — Facteau (Danville); HR — Koel (Danville), 1^st, one on.

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