Newport Harbor Baseball Assn. defeats Camarillo to stay alive in PONY Bronco Super Region

WHITTIER —  Following a tough heartbreaking 2-1 loss to Beaumont on Friday night, the Newport Harbor Baseball Assn. 12-and-under All-Stars had to quickly regroup in order to stay alive in the the PONY Bronco Super Region tournament.

Thanks to a six-run fourth inning, Newport Harbor kept the season alive with a 7-3 victory over Camarillo on Saturday afternoon at York Field.

The victory gives Newport Harbor another day of baseball. Newport Harbor will take on North City of San Diego on Sunday at York Field at 8 a.m.

“I’m proud of the whole team,” Newport Harbor coach Shawn Pence said. “I’m proud of the way they responded to last night’s tough loss. It was an emotional loss. It really shows the strength of this team to come back and play as hard as they can against a really good Camarillo team. I’m really proud of them.”

North City moved into the loser’s bracket with an 11-9 loss to Cypress on Saturday as a second loss can send someone home from the SoCal Regional. The Regional consists of teams from all over Southern California as two teams try to advance to Zone.

Newport Harbor‘s offense got it going in the opening inning thanks to a single from Lawson Olmstead, the younger brother of Newport Harbor High School baseball player and USC-commit John Olmstead, that sent Ryan Williams home.

Newport Harbor bats would stay quiet in the following two innings, but would explode in the fourth inning.

Brody Williams led off the inning with a base hit to deep center field for a triple, but the baseball was overthrown to third base and landed inside the Camarillo dugout, advancing Williams home on a dead ball.

“I just wanted to hit the ball far,” Brody said. “I did and it went far. I just knew in my mind I was going to do it.”

Camarillo defensive woes would continue following Williams’ triple with two more errors that sent Olmstead home on a ground ball to third by Jaxon Guyser.

Ryan Williams followed and connected with a two-run double to right field. Williams would score on a single by Bode Stefano, who would score as well on a single by Vince Menard to make it 7-0.

“One bad inning is all it took,” Camarillo coach Steve Smith said. “They capitalized on some errors that we made, but I’m proud of what my kids did this summer. Getting here to Regionals for the second year in a row is exciting and I’m proud of them.”

Camarillo would chip away in the fourth inning thanks to a sacrifice RBI by Nico Guillen that scored Cade Cook. A second run came in on a double steal that sent Blake Bryce home from third base.

Guillen would send Cook home once again on an RBI single to left field in the sixth inning.

Starter Brayden Smith only threw 2/3 of an inning to take the loss for Camarillo, which used five pitchers in the game.

Olmstead went three for four with a double and an RBI and Gavin Guy threw 2 1/3 innings while striking out three and giving up two runs, one hit and a walk to get the win for Newport Harbor. Like Camarillo, Newport Harbor also used five pitchers.

If Newport Harbor defeats North City Sunday morning, it will play again at 4:30 p.m for a chance to play on Monday.

“We have to get a good night sleep,” Ryan said. “We get started early and we have to get the bats going and play good defense.”

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