By By SCOTT NOVAK / Niles Daily Star
NILES – The Niles All-Stars scored early and often as they advanced to the championship game of the Michigan District 15 Junior Baseball Tournament at Niles Stadium on Saturday.
Niles defeated Mendon 17-1 in five innings to move on to Tuesday night's title game.
Vicksburg will meet Niles in the finals after defeating Mendon in the consolation finals on Saturday, 7-6.
Mendon…1
Niles…17
Niles scored four runs in the first inning and five in the second frame to break the game open early.
Niles added two runs in the third, one run in the fourth and five runs in the fifth to complete its scoring.
Mendon scored its lone run in the fourth inning on two walks and two hit batters.
Kelvin Tweedy, David Sokolowski and Dustin Bell combined on a no-hitter.
Tweedy picked up the victory as he did not allow a hit, while striking out seven and walking six. Sokolowski struck out two and walked one, while Bell struck out the only batter he faced.
Tweedy helped his own cause with three hits and five RBIs. Bell finished with a single, a double and three RBIs, while John Carey also doubled.
Niles also got two hits and an RBI from Dustan Craig and two singles and two RBIs from Rashad Harris.
The championship game is slated to begin at 6 p.m. at Thomas Stadium.
Vicksburg…7
Mendon…6
Mendon's seventh inning rally fell short by a run.
Trailing Vicksburg 7-4, Mendon scored two runs before a pop up to the pitcher ended the game.
Max Ganun was the winning pitcher for Vicksburg, while Ethan Eberstein took the loss.
Aron Rugg and Jesse Boulnemour both doubled for Vicksburg. Mike Waldon, Alex LaPorte, Kaleb Nuesbaum and Dylan Kloosterman all singled.
Eberstein had two hits for Mendon.
LMP…17
Vicksburg…18
It took five hours to play seven innings in determining whether Vicksburg or Lawton-Marcellus-Paw Paw would advance into the consolation finals on Saturday.
Vicksburg trailed 17-11 heading into the bottom of the seventh, but scored seven runs to pull out the victory.
With two outs and the score 17-16, Vicksburg's LaPorte doubled home the winning runs. Boulnemour had a two-run single for Vicksburg, which was aided in its comeback by five Lawton-Marcellus-Paw Paw walks.
Kloosterman's double pulled Vicksburg within a run.
Vicksburg actually led 7-3 after two inning of play, however, LMP scored 10 runs in the sixth inning to take the 17-11 lead.
Rugg had a two-run triple for Vicksburg in the second inning.
In the sixth inning, LMP took advantage of errors and Justin Sonnevil's single to score its 10 runs.
The two teams finished with a combined 25 runs on 17 hits.