SFLL, Penn Valley head into

Area II winner’s bracket semis

The Sierra Foothills and Penn Valley Little League All-Star teams took different paths into Monday night’s District 11 Area II major division winner’s bracket semi-final game slated for 5 p.m. at Pioneer Park in Nevada City.

 Sierra Foothills from the Colfax area flexed their hitting muscles for the second straight game with some big bat work which produced a 10-1 win over Grass Valley last Friday night.

Penn Valley, meanwhile, had to come up with some late game heroics to pull out an exciting 7-6 win over host Nevada City.

The two setbacks dropped both Grass Valley and Nevada City into loser’s bracket action on Saturday where the two squads both responded with wins to stay alive in the double elimination affair.

Grass Valley’s Ben Blackman took advantage of a pair of Bear River errors in the top of the sixth inning to score the run that eventually held up in his team’s 5-4 win over the south Nevada County squad.

Nevada City had an easier time of things with a big 22-2 win over Newcastle.

Grass Valley and Nevada City will play en elimination game tonight at 7:30 p.m. following the SFLL-Penn Valley opener.

Here’s a recap of the weekend’s games:

SFLL 10 Grass Valley 1 – Gary Root fired a one-hitter and the Sierra Foothills bats came alive once again for the easy win. Top sticks for SFLL included Sam Guzman, Brett Fowler and Matt Anglade as the Colfax team improved to 2-0 in the tourney.

Penn Valley 7 Nevada City 6 – Host Nevada City had a talented Penn Valley team on the ropes but couldn’t close the deal out as PVLL rallied for three runs with two outs in the bottom of the sixth to pull out the walk-off victory.

Dusty Zeisler’s key two-run single and Jared Cook’s ensuing game winning RBI rap produced the winning margin for Penn Valley in their last at-bats.

Zeisler also had a home run for the winners in the contest while Joey Benevento went 2x4 and scored twice.

Roland Pussich pitched well in relief of starter Tanner Vallejo and picked up the mound win.

For Nevada City, Brent Heinzelman delivered a big two-run homer, which gave the hosts an early 3-2 lead in the third inning. Alex Charvoz also contributed a pair of hits for Nevada City.

Grass Valley 5 Bear River 4 – In an elimination game on Saturday, Bear River and Grass Valley went at it tooth and nail before the Grass Valley squad scored the winning tally in the top of the sixth.

Kyle Selleck’s 2x3 night included a RBI single for Grass Valley while John Wiles was also 2x3 with a double and RBI. Also for the winners, Zane Davidson added a triple while Dan Hewit contributed a double.

Bear River’s effort was sparked by Josh Toft who blasted a three-run home run to tie the count at 4-4 at the end of three frames. Toft also fared well on the hill for BRLL as he tossed a six-hitter in five and two-thirds innings of work, which featured an eight-strikeout effort.

Sammy Aguilar paired hits for Bear River while Andrew Reiss and Nick Mendenwald also delivered RBI hits.

Wiles was the winning hurler by tossing the last three frames in relief of Nick Eccarius.

Nevada City 22 Newcastle 2 – Nevada City’s big hitting outclassed Newcastle, which was fielding its first team in all-star tournament play.