La Verne 10-Year-Old All Stars Have Statisticians Scrambling for the Record Books in 25-3 Victory
Nolan O'Laughlin scores the first of La Verne's 25 runs.
Going three-for-three is a great game for most players, but getting three hits in three at-bats in one inning? And to have two players do it in the same frame! It’s a story that Ben Wolfe and Joe De Fina will be sharing with their grandchildren some day. The feat has to be more improbable than pitching a perfect game or hitting for the cycle (hitting a single, double, triple and homer in the same game). But it happened!
In the first inning of La Verne’s game against Pomona Ted Green, the Red, White and Blue sent 23 batters to the plate, 19 of whom scored on a dozen hits. Batting in the second spot, Wolfe doubled, singled and doubled. Batting third, De Fina doubled each time he stepped to the plate.
But La Verne was hardly a two-man show. In his three trips to the plate in the 35-minute top of the first inning, clean-up hitter Tommy Delgado walked and doubled twice. Also collecting hits in the frame were Jared Serrano, Nolan O’Laughlin, Luke Russell and Tanner Siffert.
The only thing that seems to go up more than La Verne’s run total these days is the price of a first-class postage stamp. On Monday, La Verne scored 19 runs.
In the second inning of Tuesday’s contest, La Verne pushed another half-dozen runs across the plate, three of those coming on a three-run homer by Russell. When La Verne’s total reached 25, the scoreboard went haywire, no doubt unable to keep up with the frenetic pace of La Verne’s run production.
Luke Russell went downtown in the second inning.
Ted Green managed to score three runs in the bottom of the second, but the game was clearly out of reach by then. On the mound, La Verne’s O’Laughlin, Serrano, Wolfe and Nick Litwin shared duties.
In the third inning, many of the La Verne players got do something that many of them may never experience in a game again, and that was the opportunity to switch hit. Remarkably, many of the players who entered the batter’s box on their unnatural side actually looked comfortable at the plate, making solid contact on several occasions.
On a day that La Verne was named one of the top 10 cities for families to raise their children, parents saw their all stars come out swinging and they never really stopped until the game was called after four innings with La Verne leading 25-3.
La Verne returns to the park on Thursday, July 7, looking to move one step closer toward its goal of winning the 10-year-old District 20 championship and making more history.
Leave a Reply