SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Cascade Little League has come a long way to get within two victories of a ticket to the Little League World Series.
Standing in its way will be a team from about 10 miles away.
Issac Hodory, Micah Foskett and Mason Hill combined to hold Boulder-Arrowhead Little League of Billings, Mont., to four hits and the Washington offense surged late for an 11-2, second-round victory in the Northwest Regional at Al Houghton Stadium.
Cascade advanced to face an old friend, Wilshire-Riverside Little League of Portland, at 10 a.m. Thursday, with the game to be televised on either ESPN or ESPN2. The victor there advances directly to Saturday’s Northwest championship.
“We’re separated by a river,” Cascade manager Mark Hodory said.
Hodory said his team knows the Wilshire-Riverside kids through various travel tournament and such. The Oregon state champions advanced in dramatic fashion Monday, rallying for eight runs in the top of the sixth inning en route to an 11-6 win over Gastineau Channel of Juneau, Alaska.
“We’ve scouted them, and they’ve scouted us,” Hodory said. “We know each other well.”
For the second consecutive game, Cascade started slow, going down in order in the top of the first inning. It served as a further wakeup call when Montana’s No. 3 hitter, Cade Westerlund, homered for a 1-0 lead in the bottom half of the frame.
“It just seemed like the team started to get a little nervous and was picking at each other,” Hodory said. “We just had to get them settled down and know that eventually, the bats would come along.”
That did happen, and “eventually” didn’t take long.
Cascade tied the game in the top of the second on Travis Weise’s RBI single. It tacked on two more in the third on RBI singles by Russell Fearington and Issac Hodory.
Cascade (12-0) broke the game open with a four-run fifth inning, capped by Riley McCarthy’s three-run home run on a 2-0 pitch.
“I saw both pitches early,” McCarthy said. “I saw another fastball and jumped on it.”
McCarthy, Fearington, and Mason Hill — the hero of the Cascade’s opening-night win with two home runs against Idaho — all finished 2-for-4. Travis Weise went 2-for-2 with two RBIs.
Starter Issac Hodory struck out two in three innings of one-run ball. Foskett struck out three in two scoreless innings and Hill allowed a run but easily held the lead by pitching the sixth.
“What they did really well is that they didn’t make any mistakes,” Boulder-Arrowhead manager Jeff Keller said of Cascade.
