Majors wrapping up, tourney on the way

The Williams Little League baseball majors teams ‹ the Scrappers, the Storm, and the Wildcats ‹ are nearing the end of their season and are doing well.

The Storm and the Wildcats played each other on June 4 in Williams with the Storm coming out ahead in a narrow extra-inning 11-10 game.

For the Storm, Dallas Grantham pitched the first five innings and Jonson Curry cleaned up with the last three. Storm coach Tiger Grantham said he's proud of his team so far and gave accolades to players Adrian Solano and Daniel Serrano for hitting well at the game.

For the Wildcats, with an 8-2 record so far, Darius Brown pitched the first four, Ty Sherwood covered the middle three while Jeff Brownlee cleaned up on the last inning.

"They did good," Wildcats Coach Steve Sherwood said. "That was probably the best game we've played against them this year."

Ty Sherwood, Brown, and Georgie Gauna were mentioned for their efforts at the plate.

Meanwhile, the Scrappers notched themselves a 10-0 victory against the Grand Canyon team earlier that same morning.

"The kids are coming around finally. They did very well," said Scrappers Coach Kevin Perkins, explaining that the beginning of the season was tough, due to school schedule conflicts.

Colton Baxter pitched for the Scrappers and managed to set a new record for himself with 11 strikeouts. At the plate, both Johnathan Hernandez and Tyler Earles each knocked in an in-field home run.

The Storm and the Wildcats play against each other again tonight at 6 p.m. at the Cureton Park field, then it's the Scrappers and Wildcats tomorrow, also at 6 p.m. The Scrappers will play Grand Canyon Saturday while the Wildcats will battle Ash Fork Monday.

As for the Williams Little League girls softball team, their season started last week, but will only last for another two weeks as there are only three league teams ‹ Williams, Ash Fork and Seligman. Over the weekend, Williams lost to Seligman, but not without a fight, in a 10-13 game that was called in the fifth after going over the two-hour time limit.

"All of them (Williams players) did well in the game," said Coach Ofelia Robbins. "We had excellent pitching and good fielding."

Alma Hernandez pitched the first three for Williams while Tasha Bowden cleaned up the remaining two. The team will be at Seligman tomorrow at 6 p.m.

Other teams in the minors and tee ball categories are starting their season this week and the News will have results in upcoming issues.

At the same time, the first initial seeds for ladder placement for the upcoming little league All Stars double-elimination tournament playoffs is in. There are two divisions ‹ one for ages 9-10, and one for ages 11-12. The 9-10 category will play in Sedona. The 11-12 division plays at home as Williams hosts 10 teams during a two-week span starting July 5.