{"id":8350,"date":"2013-08-16T16:00:28","date_gmt":"2013-08-16T20:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=8350"},"modified":"2013-08-16T21:21:21","modified_gmt":"2013-08-17T01:21:21","slug":"five-run-rally-in-7th-sends-kau-to-title-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=8350","title":{"rendered":"Five-run rally in 7th sends KAU to title game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kings one win from Senior League World Series title<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n

Updated at 9:20 p.m. with Saturday’s opponent<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

By Kathleen Brady Shea<\/strong><\/span>,\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"SLWordSeries-300x234\"<\/a>The jubilant Kennett Kings moved closer to the Senior League Baseball World Series crown on Friday with a convincing 9-4 win over Pearl City of Hawaii \u2014 keyed by a five-run, two-out rally in the seventh.<\/p>\n

Chris Tucker’s base-clearing triple propelled the Kings to Saturday’s title game, where they will face off against Panama, the only team that beat them in pool play. The championship game, which will be broadcast live by ESPNU, is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cCloud Nine would be an understatement,\u201d said KAU Coach Mike Pechin. \u201cIt\u2019s been an unbelievable ride with so many ups and downs. These guys have been so resilient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assistant Coach Chris Jarmuz agreed, adding that the members have systematically \u00a0stayed together, \u201cpicking each other up through personal loss and rallying around strong pitching defense and timely hitting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennett, the Eastern Regional Champions, jumped out to an early lead with six hits and four runs in the first inning. Drew Jarmuz, Alex\u00a0 Pechin, and Andrew Jones all singled to load the bases.\u00a0 Joe Zirolli walked to force in the first run, and.\u00a0 Tucker Reese grounded into a double play, but Pechin scored from second base. Jake Freeman and Eric Takoushian delivered two more singles, with Jones scoring on Freeman\u2019s hit for a 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Trestan Nakamura, the starting pitcher for Hawaii, which had only allowed two runs in four games, \u00a0was lifted from the game with a line of five hits and four\u00a0 runs in two-thirds of an inning. Designated hitter Dan Garver greeted Hawaii reliever Brandon Henderson with a run-scoring chop single to right field for the King\u2019s fourth run.\u00a0 Hawaii centerfielder Nicholas Au\u00a0 prevented scoring further when he made a diving catch of Chris Tucker\u2019s line drive.<\/p>\n

KAU\u2019s 16s threatened again in the third inning by loading the bases. Au thwarted that threat, too, with another sliding catch to rob Tucker in centerfield.<\/p>\n

Pearl City, which was not about to cave,\u00a0 clawed back in the fourth with two runs. It continued the comeback in the fifth,\u00a0 adding a third score to make it a one-run game.<\/p>\n

With momentum starting to shift to the Pearl City team,\u00a0 KAU responded definitively in the top of the 7th<\/sup>\u00a0inning with five runs. The most dramatic play occurred when Chris Tucker slammed a triple with two outs and the bases loaded. \u201cIt was so surreal,\u201d said Pechin.<\/p>\n

Mike Pechin had praise for pitcher Andrew Jones, as well as Jones\u2019 reliever, Alex Pechin, the coach\u2019s son, who entered in the seventh and ended the game with a strikeout.\u00a0 \u201cHe kept them totally off balance,\u201d said Pechin of Jones\u2019 performance. \u201cHe did a great job of mixing it up. As a pitching coach, you can\u2019t ask for more than that.\u00a0 They\u2019ve both done a great job for us all season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the team had to play without starting catcher Eric Duerr, it was buoyed Thursday afternoon when Duerr joined his teammates at the hotel after being released from the hospital with a concussion, an injury that would sideline him but was less severe than feared. Duerr, the son of KAU manager Todd Duerr, was hurt during Wednesday night\u2019s game when he collided with a Panama player who was trying to score. Ryan Barrett took over as catcher.<\/p>\n

Mike Pechin said Duerr\u2019s injury devastated the team. \u201cThat was the lowest I\u2019d ever seen them,\u201d he said. But he said Duerr\u2019s return had an immediate positive, calming effect. \u201cIt was great for everyone to see that he was going to be OK,\u201d said Pechin.<\/p>\n

Pechin said one of the team\u2019s most impressive qualities has been the players\u2019 versatility and their ability to step up when needed. \u201cIt\u2019s always someone different,\u201d Pechin said. \u201cI\u2019m so proud to be part of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Senior League Baseball is the Little League\u2019s division for 13- to 16-year-olds. The Senior League Baseball World Series, which has been held\u00a0 at Shawn T. Mansfield Stadium in Bangor, Maine, since 2002, is one of eight World Series sponsored by Little League International, the largest youth sports program in the world.<\/p>\n

No Pennsylvania team has won the championship since 1961, and Pechin said the team would like to change that. \u201cThis has been a team of firsts,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy not another one?\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the group plans to attend Friday\u2019s night banquet and then rest up for Saturday\u2019s outing, Pechin said.<\/p>\n

Jarmuz said the team has been moved by the outpouring of support it has received from fans on social media sites. \u201cEven local fans from Maine have taken a liking to the Kings\u2019 good baseball character,\u201d Jarmuz said. \u201cBeing on ESPN? Wow!\u201d<\/p>\n

The McDonald\u2019s MVPs for the game were Jones and Tucker.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kings one win from Senior League World Series title Updated at 9:20 p.m. with Saturday’s opponent By Kathleen Brady Shea,\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times The jubilant Kennett Kings moved closer to the Senior League Baseball World Series crown on Friday with a convincing 9-4 win over Pearl City of Hawaii \u2014 keyed by a five-run, two-out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,22],"tags":[3078,3079,3080,142,3081],"class_list":["post-8350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","category-sports","tag-assistant-coach-chris-jarmuz","tag-espn","tag-kau-coach-mike-pechin","tag-kennett-kings","tag-senior-league-baseball-world-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}