Little League: Petaluma Valley Juniors throw combined one-hitter, stay alive in state tournament

What a way to avenge a loss.

Petaluma Valley Juniors did just that on Friday, shutting out Pacifica 8-0 behind a combined one-hitter from Callaway Haluska, Colt Cilia and Chris Kircher.

Now, with one win apiece, the clubs will meet once more in a winner-take-all finale Saturday for the Northern California title.

“Altogether, we improved our hitting with runners in scoring position,” Petaluma Valley head coach Shawn Dooley said. “It was nice to get some balance throughout the game, knowing we could have had even more … I know the other team also sees that, so hopefully we can have our offense in full force tomorrow.”

In sweltering, 104-degree heat in Rocklin, the PVLL offense started from the get-go, with Noah Holley ripping a two-out, RBI single in the top of the first. Two innings later, the team would plate two more off another Holley single to left. The PVLL bats that normally take a while to heat up started out on fire.

And PVLL certainly could have had more, as the team left a whopping seven runners on base in the first three innings.

Tyler Pelissetti hit a sacrifice fly in the top of the fourth to resume the scoring as Petaluma Valley slowly but surely broke the game open. A two-out, RBI double by Timothy Dooley in the top of the sixth scored Brandon Lozinto-Wyatt, while Pelissetti scored on a wild pitch in the top of the seventh.

Lozinto-Wyatt followed that Pelissetti score up with an RBI double, which scored Gavin Powell. PVLL was in cruise control.

All in all, Petaluma Valley amassed a total of 13 hits, their highest in this tournament and second-highest this season. They had 16 hits against Fort Bragg in the opener.

Meanwhile, Haluska, Cilia and Kircher were doing all they could on the bump to play one more day.

Haluska threw 5⅓ innings of no-hit ball while walking four and striking out five. Cilia got two strikeouts in his one inning of work, and Kircher, despite having the no-hitter broken up with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, closed the door by inducing a fielder’s choice.

“It was a gritty performance by Cal (Haluska),” Dooley said. “After warmups we were almost beat due to the heat, but he showed up from the start and threw strikes even with a fairly tight zone … Colt came in, did his job and got a couple outs, kept him to a lower pitch count, and then Chris came in to shut the door with the top of their order up.”

Saturday’s game will be under the lights yet again, with a 7 p.m. start time.

“We feel pretty confident,” Dooley said. “We know we’ve left a lot of runs on the board against this team twice now, and we’ve split with them. So after today, when we got contributions all up and down the lineup, we feel pretty confident heading into tomorrow.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kienan O’Doherty at 415-887-8650 or kienan.odoherty@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @kodoherty22.