On 40-Year Anniversary of Moon Landing, La Verne Lands a Few Moon Shots of Their Own

Kenny Walker

Facing a win-or-go-home situation, and while their parents, friends and fans were still settling into their seats, the La Verne Little League 12-year-old All-Stars sent 17 batters to the plate, pounded out eight hits and scored 12 runs in the top of the first inning against what figured to be a tough West Covina squad.

La Verne would go on to score in every inning en route to a 20-0 victory, producing by far their most dominant performance of the post-season and sending scribes rushing to their dictionaries to look up a new string of superlatives. Maybe the kids all listened to the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling That Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night” before they got off the team bus?

“We’ve been waiting for this for five or six games,” said La Verne Manager Bobby Diebold. “The kids came out and hit the ball hard. We needed this game. Our bats the last couple of games, they had quieted up a little bit, so we needed this game.”

All of La Verne’s first-inning runs came with two outs. Once the powder keg was lit, however, there was almost no way to control the explosion.

As he normally does, Garrett Weiss singled to lead things off and quickly moved to third on a double by Tanner Diebold. With runners on the corners, Robert Peterson grounded out to short and when Weiss broke for home he was called out despite a beautiful slide at the plate that seemed to elude the tag. That was as close as the game would get.

With two outs, clean-up hitter Justin Gomez hit an opposite-field, two-run homer over the left field fence to start the scoring parade. By the time the rally ended, La Verne parents could have driven home and back to the Hacienda Heights Little League field and the first inning would have still been going on.

Cordell Smith

After Gomez cleaned the bases, Ice Carranza was hit by a pitch, Sean Heberer singled, Kenny Walter walked, Danny Gelalich walked, Weiss singled again, Diebold doubled, Peterson walked and Gomez was intentionally walked. Runners were crossing the plate faster than a clerk ringing up sales at a Kohl’s 50%-off sale.

Carranza made West Covina’s strategy of walking Gomez backfire by hitting a grand slam to give La Verne a 12-0 lead. Heberer would single again and Tilton would walk before West Covina recorded the final out.

After the 12-0 top-of-the-first onslaught, the La Verne brain trust went scrambling to devise a new game plan that would save scheduled starter Carranza for closer contests later in the tournament. So, they scratched Carranza and inserted Cordell Smith to handle the pitching load. Diebold and his staff learned, however, that per Little League rules, once a player’s name is penciled in on the scorecard, that player must face at least one batter before being pulled. The tiny controversy resulted in Carranza pitching the entire first inning. He was as sharp as ever, giving up just a single to Justin Flores, who was cut down at second when he tried to leg out a double.

“I thought I made a mistake there for a minute,” Diebold admitted about the line-up snafu. “I had Carranza on the line-up card as the starting pitcher. Then in the middle of the first inning, we made a decision to save his arm, but he has to at least face the first batter, so they (league officials) said everything was fine.

“But that scared me a little bit.”

That would be the game’s only scare for La Verne. In the second, La Verne pushed across two more runs on a sacrifice fly by Connor Russell and an RBI single by Gomez. In the third Weiss cleared the fence with a three-run homer. In the fourth, it was Heberer’s turn, hitting a two-run big fly.

Danny Gelalich

There was a galaxy of hitting stars on the night. Weiss collected three hits and three RBIs. Diebold had a pair of doubles, a walk, and a single to go along with three RBIs. Gomez almost hit for the cycle, collecting a two-run homer, double, single and walk for three RBIs. Carranza picked up a single to go along with his grand slam. Heberer had three hits, including the two-run homer. Smith, who twirled the shutout (sandwiched between Carranza starting and Gelalich closing out the game) had a pair of singles. Gelalich had a pair of walks and a base hit. Kenny Walter, Jake Tilton, Connor Russell and Joey Halabrin were as effective as well on a night when the entire team played like MVPs.

Maybe the toughest job on the night fell to Diebold and his coaching staff, trying to rein in their kids from stealing extra bases and running up the score when the game was far out of hand. It’s not easy, however, to stop a runaway locomotive and get the kids to play a less aggressive kind of game.

“It’s kind of tough to coach that kind of game,” Diebold said. “You want to be respectful. They were on me a little bit for sending runners. I scolded the guys for going and told them time and time again to stay at the bag. But I’m proud of them. We needed this game.”

As the Black Eyed Peas said, it was a “good, good night,” for La Verne.

Cordell Smith letting one fly.

"It's gonna be a good, good night."