Diamond Bar's PONY Baseball Run Ends in Whittier

WHITTIER - Hoping to ride the momentum of a four-game winning streak into another week of baseball, the Diamond Bar PONY 14 All-Stars saw their hopes dashed Tuesday against Chula Vista North, 12-4, in a Super Regional elimination game at York Field.

A combination of errors, unfortunate bounces and lack of offense all factored into the loss for Diamond Bar, which concludes its nearly two-month all-star run with an impressive 50-7 win-loss record.

"We had a good run. It's been about seven weeks and these guys played together and they played hard," head coach John Tweedie said. "They believed in team and the winning came along with that."

Diamond Bar was looking to complete a remarkable turnaround on Tuesday. Having lost its first game of the 16-team tournament (7-6 to Valley Wide), they rolled off four straight victories in Camarillo, outscoring opponents by a 58-21 margin.

That left them one of four teams standing on the final day in Whittier. Long Beach already locked up one of the two berths for the PONY Zone tournament on Monday, with the second to be decided in a pair of Tuesday games.

Diamond Bar got things started on a perfect note, scoring four runs in the bottom of the first inning. Shortstop Jake Cooke's two-run double and a RBI single from second baseman Johnny Chamberlain were the key hits of the inning.

Despite the instant deficit, Chula Vista North head coach Joel Corona remained unfazed.

"I knew the kids were more than capable of coming back," said Corona, whose team was the reigning PONY 13 World Series champion. "We just had to keep our heads up and stay patient."

Chula Vista slowly but surely got back in the game, scoring a run in the third and three in the fifth. Robby Weissenfels two-run double was the big hit of the fifth, as the ball barely snuck into the left-field line for a pair of runs.

Chula Vista added the go-ahead run in the top of the sixth and exploded for seven runs in the seventh, as Diamond Bar starter James Goodwin had a rough start to the inning.

"He finally looked like he was struggling," Corona said.

Goodwin was strong for Diamond Bar, finishing with nine strikeouts as the majority of his runs were unearned. That was due to the struggles of the Diamond Bar defense as they had an error play a major part in three of the four innings that Chula Vista scored.

"The errors killed us," Tweedie said. "We haven't played good defense for the past couple of weeks and in the end that's what it has came back to. It bites us. But give credit to Chula Vista. That's a great team that has been together for many years. Experience always matters."

Another thing that hurt Diamond Bar was a lack of offense. They had three hits in the first inning, to have only two more the rest of the way.

Chula Vista starting pitcher Issac Vargas went the distance, finishing with eight strikeouts and allowing just a pair of singles in the final six innings.

Goodwin and Ryan Huey both went 1-for-2 in the losing cause.

While all-star action is over for the Pony 14's, the majority of the players will return next season and play as Colt All-Stars (16 and under) according to Tweedie.

"I have six 10th graders, eight ninth graders and one eighth grader and I hope they will all be back," he said. "It would be nice to try and make another run."