The Mill Creek All-Stars’ bats may have cooled off, but their pitchers are still red hot.
Derrick Mahlum, Joakim Soderqvist, Alec Kisena and Alex Jondal combined on a two-hit shutout Tuesday as Mill Creek defeated Idaho 7-0 to clinch a spot in the semifinals of the Northwest Regional Little League Baseball Tournament in San Bernardino, Calif.
Pool play concludes today with Mill Creek (3-0) playing Oregon (3-0), and Montana (1-2) facing Alaska (0-3). The other teams in the Northwest bracket are Wyoming (3-1) and Idaho (0-4). The top four teams in the bracket advance to the semifinals.
Through three games, Mill Creek’s pitchers have allowed just five runs. The key, coach Scott Mahlum said, can be summed up in one word: control.
“We’ve had only one walk,” Scott Mahlum said. “That’s the difference between us and a lot of the other teams down here.”
The four pitchers Mill Creek used Tuesday combined for nine strikeouts and, true to form, did not walk a batter. None of them threw more than 45 pitches.
“Our pitching was phenomenal,” Scott Mahlum said, “and we were able to keep to our pitch counts to keep everybody fresh for the next game.”
Derrick Mahlum, Scott’s son, pitched the first 31/3 innings. He surrendered just one hit and struck out four to earn the victory.
“He didn’t have a ball hit out of the infield on him,” Scott Mahlum said.
While Mill Creek’s pitchers dominated the game, the hitters had an off day — at least by their standards. After collecting 25 hits and scoring 30 runs in its first two games, Mill Creek managed just six hits — five of them singles — off two Idaho pitchers.
“The kid threw 60, 65 percent knucklecurves and we just didn’t hit the ball well,” Scott Mahlum said of Idaho’s starting pitcher. “We’re still swinging at some bad pitches.”
Still, Mill Creek was able to get the hits when it needed them.
The All-Stars broke a scoreless tie in the second inning when Kisena singled up the middle to drive in the game’s first run.
Mill Creek added four runs in the third, the big hit being a two-run single by Jason Todd, who later scored on the back end of a double steal.
Mill Creek added its final two runs in the fifth on a two-run homer by Joakim Soderqvist, his second homer of the tournament. Soderqvist’s was 1-for-2 with two runs scored and two runs batted in. For the tournament, he’s hitting .571 (4-for-7) with eight runs scored and four RBI.
Today’s showdown between Mill Creek and Beaverton, Ore., will determine the bracket’s No. 1 seed. The winner plays the No. 4 seed in the semifinals at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Today’s loser plays in the first semifinal at 4:30 p.m. Thursday.
While a win today would be nice, Scott Mahlum said the most important thing is to make sure his pitching rotation is set for the semifinals.
“It’s only for seeding,” he said of today’s contest. “The main thing is you want your pitchers eligible for the semifinals.”
Thursday’s winners play Saturday night for the regional championship, with the winner advancing to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.
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