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Eldorado Civics Association was the sixth and final entry in the Altoona Teener League 15U playoffs when the regular season ended. The coach, Mike Akins, believes they were coming together.
"We gelled probably two weeks ago. I kept telling the team 'I wouldn't want to be the team playing us,'" he said. "We proved that we're good enough to win."
A recipe comparable to Monday night repeated itself on Tuesday as ECA swept No. 4 Sheetz, 3-2, in game 2, to win the best-of-3 series.
The offense started things in the second as Xavier Farabaugh reached on a single, scoring Carter Gibson to put Eldorado up 1-0. Xavier Farabaugh was 2-for-3.
Both teams traded scoreless frames until the fifth as Cooper Greenleaf belted an RBI single, scoring Colin Ronan to tie the game at 1-1.
In the bottom of the frame walks hurt Sheetz.
Three of the first four batters reached on a free pass -- two walks and a hit by pitch. Vinnie Hite drove in a run on a walk while Gibson later added an insurance run on a fielder's choice to make it 3-1.
Ari Holzer shut the door for Eldorado as he went 6ª innings, giving up two runs on four hits while walking three and striking out five. Teammate Luke Farabaugh was key with his glove as the shortstop had four putouts and two assists.
"(Sheetz' Kolton Meloy) had us off balance pretty much the whole game," Akins said. "We did just enough to put on a few runs on the board and that was enough. Ari (Holzer) was pretty much lights out the whole time.
"No errors, Lucas (Farabaugh), fantastic job at short. Great defense, great team win. We didn't score a bunch, but we scored enough."
"It's a tough loss," Sheetz coach Richie Butler said. "Nobody likes to lose. Ari pitched one heck of a game. Obviously we didn't put up the runs to keep pace. That's life. Baseball seems to find people sometimes, and that's the way it turned out for us."
Meloy was valiant in defeat, going 4• innings allowing three runs -- two earned -- walking five and striking out four.
"The walks certainly haunted us, but I don't want it to take away from what Kolton did, because Kolton pitched a heck of a game for us also," Butler said. "It's just the way the cookie crumbled. We had the chances, we just didn't capitalize on them."
Sheetz did give itself one last chance in the seventh as Greenleaf smacked a double, scoring Ronan, but that's as close as the team got. Spencer Akins put the game on ice with a strikeout to end the threat.
"You're playing good competition every night, and we had tight games throughout," Mike Akins said. "We just did enough to win. Starting pitching was always good, and our defense was perfect."
Richie Butler is proud of how his team rose from being the fourth seed in the field to being two wins away from a league title.
"I take my hats off to the kids," he said. "They had a lot of comeback wins and they had a lot of fighting to get here. I take my hat off to all of them."
The league announced its annual awards before the game as Chance Butler (Sheetz) won the 14U Sportsmanship Award, Jerran Moyer (Sheetz) took home the 15U honor, Hite won the Senior Babe Ruth Presidential Award while Alec Woodring of Old School Printing won the league MVP.
SHEETZ (2): Butler 2b-p 301, Gority ss 200, Jimenez cf 301, J. Moyer c 300, C. Moyer 300, Ronan rf 220, Buchanan 1b 302, Greenleaf lf 302, Meloy p-2b 300. Totals: 24-2-4.
ELDORADO CIVICS (3): L. Farabaugh ss 200, Pyo cf 211, Akins 2b-p 200, Hite 3b 200, Holzer p-2b 301, Gibson 1b 311, Walters c 200, X. Farabaugh rf 302, Anders eh 300, Lloyd lf 110. Totals: 23-3-5.
SCORE BY INNINGS
Sheetz 000 010 1 - 2 4 0
Eldorado Civics 010 020 X - 3 5 0
2B - Greenleaf (S). RBI - Greenleaf 2 (S); Hite, Holzer, X. Farabaugh (EC).
PITCHING
SHEETZ: Meloy (L) 4.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 5 BB, 4 SO; Butler 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER 0 BB, 0 SO.
ELDORADO CIVICS: Holzer (W) 6.2 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 5 SO; Akins (S) 0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 SO.