The Ceres Blaze 10-and-under travel baseball team capped off its season with a second-place finish in the Gold Bracket of the National Championship Sports Orange County World Series earlier this month in Southern California.
Blaze players were presented a banner and rings at the conclusion of the event.
“It was our end-of-season tournament,” head coach Ralph Valencia said. “We’re happy with how the kid performed. They had fun and played very well.”
The Orange County World Series was staged July 7-12 at multiple locations.
The tournament featured 21 teams.
The Blaze compiled a 5-2 record in the Open Division.
“The competition out there is really good,” Valencia said. “It’s several steps above what we see locally. The expectation was to get into the Gold Bracket. We did that. We competed.”
Seventh-seeded Ceres lost 9-2 to top-seeded Stone Baseball in the championship game on July 12 at the Huntington Beach Sports Complex.
“They have a really good team,” Valencia said. “It was close for the first three innings. Then they had one big inning and we couldn’t come back.”
The Blaze knocked off third-seeded JGB Arizona 10-3 in the semifinals on July 12.
Brady Anderson led the way on offense with an inside-the-park grand slam.
Aaron Mercado and Easton Flores both logged playing time at pitcher.
Mercado tallied two strikeouts in four innings.
Flores had one strikeout in two innings.
Ceres upset the second-seeded Diamond Dawgs 4-3 in the quarterfinals on July 11 at Lake Forest Sports Park.
Blaze pitcher Jax Moring allowed no earned runs and three hits with six strikeouts and no walks in six innings.
Mercado collected one double and two RBIs on offense.
Elijah Sanchez had an RBI single.
Brendan Maine doubled.
Ceres battled back from a 3-2 deficit by scoring two runs in the top of the fifth inning.
The Blaze won three of four games in pool play.
Ceres bested OC Crush Bennett 12-6 and lost 12-3 to Stone Baseball on July 10 at Lake Forest Sports Park.
The Blaze topped the Cory Lidle Caballeros 16-7 on July 9 and MV Strokes 14-4 on July 8.
Abel Valencia batted 3-for-4 from the plate against the Caballeros.
Ceres broke the game open in the second innings.
The Blaze scored nine times.
Flores and Luke White both drove in two runs.
Sanchez, Maine, Mercado, Tanner Bispo and Abel Valencia all collected one RBI.
Ceres played seven games in a five-day span at the Orange County World Series.
“When you play against really good teams, it can go one of two ways,” coach Valencia said. “You compete or get blown out. We won more than we lost. It was cool to see the kids compete against high-level teams.”
The Blaze relied on 12 different players during the course of the season, including Anderson, Mercado, Flores, Moring, Sanchez, Maine, White, Bispo, Abel Valencia, Blake Burnett, Dean Escarega and Danny Jacobo.
Ceres amassed a 36-14 overall record this year.
The Blaze won four titles and finished second four times while competing in 12 tournaments.
“The core group has played together since they were eight,” Ralph Valencia said. “The majority of the kids will be on the 11-and-under team. The expectation is to compete at a high level and continue to improve.”
