KEARNEY — Three down, three to go.
After starting tournament play with a 10-1 loss to Hastings, the South Sioux City Little League Majors team has won three in a row and need three more wins to repeat their state championship finish from two years ago.
The SSC Majors beat Benson (17-0), Blair (11-9) and Twin Valley (7-6) to get through the first weekend of play in the 11-team tournament and will need three more wins this weekend to come away as state champions in the Nebraska Little League State Tournament.
Manager Steve Selk said the team overcame some early-game jitters and played well throughout the first weekend of tournament play.
“Once we take out those first innings in a couple of games, we settled in after that,” he said. “The coaches and I were very happy with how we played. Different people stepped up in each game, and that’s the fun part about this — you don’t know what each team has so you just show up and play and we had some good performances.”
Waylon Ochsner pitched well in two wins over the weekend. He needed just 33 pitches in three innings to dispose of Benson on Friday, and the low pitch count allowed him to pitch a complete-game win on Sunday over Twin Valley.
In Friday’s win over Benson, Ochsner struck out seven of the nine batters he faced and the offense provided more than enough support, including a 12-run second inning that saw the SSC boys bat through the lineup twice in one inning.
Colby Rager’s two-run double highlighted a five-run first inning in the win, and just about everybody who saw action put up some kind of mark in the boxscore.
Jackson Selk had two hits, three RBI and two runs scored in the win, Gavin Verdoorn had one hit, three RBI and two runs scored, Rager had one hit, two RBI and two runs scored, Luca Ramirez had two hits, two RBI and two runs scored, Jordi Amarillo had two hits and two runs and Gabe Begay had two hits.
SSC rallied from a 5-2 deficit in the win over Blair, using a six-run fourth inning to take the lead for good.
The fourth-inning rally started with an RBI single by Camarillo, scoring Luis Vanos. Selk followed with a two-run double and Begay added an RBI single and later stole home to end the scoring rally.
Selk had three hits, two RBI and three runs scored in the win over Blair, Begay added two hits, three RBI and two runs, Camarillo had two hits, an RBI and a run scored, and Jayce Kramer scored twice.
Begay and Rager combined on the mound for the pitching with with seven total strikeouts.
In Sunday’s comeback win, Twin Valley scored five in the first before SSC rallied.
SSC was down 6-5 in the bottom of the seventh when they came back to earn the win. Begay hit a ground ball that was mishandled, allowing Kramer to score the tying run. Two pitches later, Selk came home on a wild pitch to keep SSC’s state title hopes alive.
Ochsner struck out seven and allowed three hits in the win for his second pitching victory of the weekend.
The SSC Majors return to Kearney for a 6 p.m. matchup against Grand Island. The winner faces the loser of the Kearney vs. Omaha Memorial game on Saturday at 11 a.m., and a winner-take-all championship game will be played Sunday at 12 p.m.
