Malibu Little League's 10-11 All-Stars Fall in Hard-Fought Battle

Malibu Little League's 10-11 All-Star team lost 13-6 to Santa Monica East on Friday at the Ladera Little League fields in the District 25 playoffs. But Malibu's championship hopes are still alive because a team is not out of the tournament until the second loss. Malibu's next game is against University or Beverly Hills on Friday at 5:30 p.m. 

Malibu gave up two runs in the top of the first, but responded with two runs of its own in the bottom of the inning.

Chase Cook led off with an infield single, Ben Cohen walked and Quincy Allen reached on an error. Two strikeouts followed, but the second was on a wild pitch that allowed Cook to score. After Tyler Ray walked, S.J. Murphy was hit by a pitch to force home Cohen. 

With William Tamkin up, Allen tried to score from third base on a wild pitch, but was called out at the plate to end the inning.

Santa Monica East regained the lead on a double to left field by Brandon Iglesias in the second inning. Allen, who was pitching for Malibu, stopped the opponent's momentum by striking out Santa Monica East batter Nick Solberg with the bases loaded. 

Santa Monica East had a 12-3 lead in the fifth, but Malibu crept closer in the inning when Chase Irons and Murphy both reached base on errors with two outs. Tamkin followed with a double to the wall in right center, scoring both runners to make it 12-5.

Trailing 13-5 heading into its final at-bat, Malibu refused to go quietly. Cook led off with a triple to right field and scored on Cohen's grounder to second base. Allen doubled, but the team was unable to score more runs.   

Rounding out Malibu's roster were Jake Hughes, Josh McConnell, Adam Rafeeti and Luca Damian. The manager is Patrick Lynch and the coaches are Jerry Irons and Ryan Gallagher.