SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Kennon Fontenot did what no one else has been able to do this postseason: silence the Mill Creek Little League All Stars bats.
Fontenot, the starter for the Southwest champions, South Lake Charles, La., had Mill Creek whiffing all night as he struck out 15 in a 5-1 victory in the opening round of the Little League World Series Saturday night in South Williamsport, Pa.
“He brought it, he had great stuff,” Mill Creek manager Scott Mahlum said in a press conference after the game.
Mill Creek had won 15 consecutive postseason games and outscored opponents 80-8 in the Northwest Regional but could not get much going against the 5-foot-9 right-hander Fontenot, whose team supplied an early 4-0 lead.
Fontenot, who throws a 70-mph-plus fastball, struck out the first eight batters he faced until Duncan Bartok fouled off several pitches before grounding out to third.
“I was excited. Wow! I wanted to play, man. I wanted to play,” Fontenot said. “I’m not a person that likes to wait.”
Mill Creek’s Dan Kingma broke up the perfect game with a leadoff double in the fourth and later scored on a single by starting pitcher Jason Todd.
But that was the only run Mill Creek could muster.
Fontenot finished with a three-hitter before hitting the 85-pitch limit with one out in the top of the sixth inning. He walked one and threw 64 of his 85 pitches for strikes.
Mahlum said after the game he had hoped his team could force Fontenot to hit his pitch count earlier. Gunner Leger notched the final two outs as South Lake Charles started pool play 1-0 while Mill Creek fell to 0-1.
“To be beat, you want to be beat by a better team and they were a better team tonight,” Mahlum said. “They had better pitching, they had better pitch-count hitting and they had better defense than we did. I tip my hat to them. They beat us.”
Mill Creek will try to regroup Monday against the Mid-Atlantic champions, Hagerstown, Md., at 9 a.m. PDT.
The manager’s son, Derrick Mahlum, will pitch.
“Now it’s do-or-die Monday and Tuesday,” Scott Mahlum said. “We’re a lot better than we showed tonight.”
Mill Creek started Todd, its 6-2 ace, and he struck out the side in the first inning.
But in the second inning, he immediately ran into trouble as the South Lake Charles hitters began to time his pitches better.
Bryce Jordan and Nicholas Abshire both singled to left field to lead off the inning and stole second and third, respectively, when catcher Alex Jondal had to dig a pitch out of the dirt.
Colton Hunt’s grounder to first scored Jordan with the game’s first run and Hunter Self followed with an RBI single to right field, making it 2-0.
South Lake Charles tacked on two more runs in the third. Fontenot led off with a triple and Beau Jordan drove him home with a double. Jordan moved to third on a wild pitch and Peyton McLemore’s RBI single to right gave South Lake Charles a 4-0 lead.
The Southwest champs added an insurance run in the fifth when Bryce Jordan led off with a double and later scored on a wild pitch.
Mill Creek got two runners on with nobody out in the sixth after Kingma reached base on an error and Derrick Mahlum singled to left, but Fontenot struck out Todd, and Leger coaxed a pop-up and fielder’s choice grounder to end the game.
Todd pitched four-plus innings and gave up eight hits, five runs, four earned while walking one and striking out seven.
Joakim Soderqvist and Alec Kisena handled mop up duties in the fifth after Todd hit his pitch limit.
The teams were the last to play in the tournament. Mill Creek hadn’t played since last Saturday night when they beat Murrayhill of Oregon 10-1 in the Northwest Regional final.
“The layoff and travel was brutal, but no excuses,” Mahlum said. “The kid beat us. He threw a great game and they hit the ball better. They were the better team, no excuses.”
Notes
Streets of Williamsport packed for parade: All 16 teams rode on floats through downtown Williamsport, Pa. Thursday eveneing, as 40,000 people lined the streets of Williamsport for the annual parade.
“It was very humbling and moving that so many people are into Little League baseball,” Mill Creek manager Scott Mahlum said. “They yelled and cheered and stood up. I don’t think anybody would believe it unless you were there to witness it yourself.”
Mill Creek rode next to Japan in the parade and the players from the two teams interacted a bit during the evening.
Former NL MVP greets Mill Creek: Retired outfielder Dale Murphy, who won National League Most Valuable Player awards in 1982 and 1983, approached the Mill Creek team and asked them to appear in a film segment for his “I Won’t Cheat,” organization.
Murphy, a Mormon who lives in Utah, started “I Won’t Cheat,” to combat the use of steroids in the game by creating positive peer pressure not to use.
The players in the Little League World Series wear patches on their uniforms saying “I Won’t Cheat.”
“Really nice guy,” Scott Mahlum said. “He approached us, that was pretty cool.”
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