ATHENS - In 2011, everything was new at the Pennsylvania Major Little League Section 3 tournament for South Columbia.
This year, it's old hat, and that's a big positive for these all-stars.
South Columbia, the District 13 champ, opened the tournament against Tri-Valley, the District 24 champion, and used last year's experience, along with good hitting, to win 8-4.
South Columbia will play the tournament hosts, District 15 champ Athens, today at 5 p.m. The winner of that game only has to win one additional game to advance to the state tournament.
"The coaches were talking and all these other teams are new to this for the most part, unless they made it when they were 9 and 10," South Columbia head coach Kirk Seesholtz said. "We said we know what it's going to be like and we know where we're staying at the hotel and the kids were easy today, which is good because last year was questionable."
Besides the logistical questions being answered easier, the South Columbia team stuck to the plan for playing at this level. It requires plenty of pitchers and they had exactly that.
A total of five pitchers took the mound for South Columbia, with Julian Fleming working the longest - 2.1 innings and 35 pitches - and picking up the win. But Garrett Barilar, Justin Derk, Andrew Haupt and Matt Grozier all got important outs and limited Tri-Valley to seven hits.
"When you get to this level and you play back-to-back-to-back, if they throw more than 20 pitches, they can't throw the next day," Seesholtz said. "So you really have to be careful. We were up here last year and ran into the same thing and used someone too long in the first couple innings and we didn't get back to be able to use him again.
"We wanted to make sure we did it this year, but Julian got going good and we let him go a little bit more. But this was the game plan going in. It helped that we went out and got a couple runs and you feel more comfortable doing that."
Elijah Hoffman did most of the heavy lifting on offense for South Columbia. The No. 2 hitter went 3-for-4 with a double and a solo home run that broke a 2-2 tie in the third inning. South Columbia never trailed again after that, and the fifth-inning double started a four-run surge that gave the team a cushion.
"He had a day and he's been due," Seesholtz said. "I knew it was going to happen at some point. He did a good job. We hit a couple hard balls that they made some plays on too. Sometimes the kids get frustrated about that, but that's all you can ask for in this game. It happens to those guys in the big leagues."
Barilar was the only other South Columbia player with a multi-hit game, but South Columbia had a total of 11 hits, meaning six other players reached base with a hit.
Game Summary
South Columbia (AB-R-H-BI) - Szuler 4-0-0-0, Hoffman 4-3-3-1, Barilar 4-2-2-1, Grozier 3-1-1-1, Fleming 3-1-1-2, Taylor 1-0-0-0, Hock 1-0-1-0, Stout 3-1-1-0, Seesholtz 1-0-0-0, Fulton 1-0-1-0, Derk 1-0-1-0, Haupt 2-0-0-0. Totals 28-8-11-5.
Tri-Valley (AB-R-H-BI) - Schwalm 3-0-2-0, Smith 1-0-0-0, Buchanan 2-1-0-0, Scheib 3-0-1-0, Yoder 3-0-0-0, Masser 3-0-0-0, Kimmel 2-2-2-0, Boltz 3-0-0-0, Leedy 1-1-1-1, Parabell 1-0-0-0, Poletti 2-0-1-1, Rothermel 1-0-0-0. Totals 25-4-7-2.
S. Columbia 111 041 - 8 11 3
Tri-Valley 020 011 - 4 7 4
Extra-base hits: 2B - Hoffman, Fleming, Leedy. HR - Hoffman.
IP H R ER BB K
S. Columbia
Barilar 1 2 0 0 0 3
Derk .2 2 2 2 0 2
Fleming (W) 2.1 0 0 0 1 3
Haupt 1 0 1 0 1 0
Grozier 1 2 1 1 0 0
Home
Boltz 3 6 3 2 0 3
Kimmel (L) 1 4 4 3 2 1
Masser 1.2 1 1 0 1 0
Schwalm .1 0 0 0 0 0