Little League: Petaluma Valley Juniors trounce Arizona to head to championship doubleheader

For the Petaluma Valley Juniors, a magical season will last another day.

The Petaluma Valley Little League All-Star squad trounced Arizona 12-3 in the Western U.S. postseason tournament to escape the losers’ bracket and grab a spot in the championship series Thursday against Hawaii.

After a rare loss a day earlier, the team of 12- to 14-year-olds was back to its best in Bend, Oregon, accumulating a season-high 17 hits while scoring a run in all but two innings.

“This is more like how we were the entire season,” Petaluma Valley head coach Shawn Dooley said. “This performance was huge, especially after yesterday’s game where he had a bad game in several different areas. It was nice to get back to who we are offensively, defensively and getting those clutch hits that we were missing.”

PVLL broke open the scoring in the top of the second when Gavin Powell laced a double to left that scored Colt Cilia. They added two more runs the next inning, when both Trevor Hermsmeyer and Noah Holley delivered RBI singles to make it 3-0 early.

A three-run fourth inning, a two-run fifth inning and a four-run sixth inning followed as the Northern California champions broke the game open.

Brandon Lozinto-Wyatt and Cilia, who were the 1-2 punch on the mound, were aided by the stellar PVLL defense in allowing just three runs on seven hits. Lozinto-Wyatt threw six innings before Cilia came on in the seventh inning to shut the door.

Tyler Pelissetti led PVLL at the plate with three RBIs, while Lozinto-Wyatt went a perfect 3-for-3. Josh Perry, Hermsmeyer and Chris Kircher also had a pair of RBIs.

Petaluma Valley will now have to win both games of Thursday’s doubleheader to advance to the Little League Juniors World Series in Taylor, Michigan, next week. Hawaii just has to win either game to advance.

It’s a spot Petaluma has been in before, as they had to beat Pacifica twice in a row to win the NorCal championship.

“I think the team feels good about where we’re at heading into tomorrow,” Dooley said. “We were just off yesterday. I think Hawaii’s a very good team, and it’s going to be difficult, but we’re going to have to play good defense. That was the biggest thing about yesterday, is that we had too many errors which allowed them to score.

“We know we can set the table and put ourselves in a position to score, but if we play clean in the field and get our normal pitching performances, I feel pretty good about tomorrow.”

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