Yankees Advance to Redondo Sunset Title Game

The Yankees beat the Mets 10-3 in a California version of the Subway Series on Tuesday in the winner's bracket finals of the Redondo Sunset Pony League, snapping the Mets' 11-game winning streak to advance to the championship game.

The Yankees will play the winner of a game between the Mets and Diamondbacks on Monday for the title.

These teams have battled all year long in the Pony Division of 13 and 14 year olds at Redondo Sunset, so it was no surprise they met in the winner's bracket final. They were first and second in the standings all season long and split their head to head games.

The Yankees finished the regular season in first place with a 13-3 record and the No. 1 ranked pitching, allowing only 99 runs, while scoring 173 runs. The Mets were right behind at 12-3-1 and had the No. 1 offense, scoring 184 runs, while giving up only 105 runs.

The Mets started out hot scoring two runs after the first few pitches of the game when Josh Williams hit a 2-run home run. Williams ended up with three hits but after that quick burst of offense, the Mets could only generate one more run, which was very surprising after they averaged more than 11 runs a game during the regular season.

According to Mets Coach Rick Herold it wasn't that the Mets offense couldn't hit but that the Yankees defense played great. "We hit the ball really hard but they made great plays,'' he said. ''Their outfielders made some outstanding catches."

The turning point came when the Mets had the bases loaded with no outs in the fifth inning, trailing only 6-3.

With some of the Mets big bats due up, the Yankees defense shut them down. On a long fly ball hit by Williams, John Moran made a great catch, and the Mets decided to take a chance and have the runner from third base tag up and try to score. But Moran made a great throw to the cutoff man, shortstop Matt Mogollon, and Mogollon fired the ball home to Kurtis Guelff and the runner was tagged out.

The game stayed close until the sixth inning when the Mets defense could not make the plays and the Yankees added four runs. Yankee Manager Gene Moran was happy with his teams play and had several standout performers.

The pitching of Travis Heinemann for the first four innings, Kevin Heinemann and closer Mogollon held the Mets in check.

Mogollon, who had 56 strikeouts this year, struck out all three batters he faced in the last inning.

Kevin Heinemann also had three RBI. Brian Fritsche played great defense at third, had three singles, two RBI. Moran, who made the catch in the outfield and started the relay that cut down the run at the plate in the fifth, made two more outstanding catches and was presented with the game ball. Russel Hash's speed created two runs with the bases loaded when he got into a run down between first and second base allowing the two runners from second and third to score.

Perhaps the play of the game was made by outfielder Preston Montoya, who made a running catch on a rocket hit to the outfield that was worthy of ESPN's top 10 plays.

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