NHBA: Bronco ‘A’ All-Stars win Dana Point Tournament

DANA POINT - The Newport Harbor Baseball Association Bronco

Division “A” All-Star team pulled out a 7-5 win over the Irvine “A”

All-Stars in the championship game of the Dana Point All-Star Tournament

Saturday.

Thomas Southern led Newport with a three-run home run, a sacrifice fly

and four RBIs, while Chris LoMenzo set the table with two key hits.

Southern also stabilized the defense with seven strong innings behind the

plate.

Newport trailed, 5-3, before Southern’s three-run home run in the

bottom of the fourth inning gave the locals the advantage.

“His dad even told him that he’d get a new wetsuit if he hit one out,”

Coach John Houten said with a laugh. “He’s picking one out as we speak.”

Irvine managed to tie the game in the sixth inning, but Newport

managed to regain the lead in the bottom half of the sixth.

Newport loaded the bases before Southern sacrificed LoMenzo home with

a deep fly ball.

From there, closer Brett Houten retired the side in order and Newport

pulled out the victory.

“Irvine hammered us the last time we played them so it was nice to win

this one,” John Houten said. “Our pitchers did a great job of keeping the

ball inside to the Irvine hitters. We managed to fist a lot of their

batters and forced them into easy pop outs.”

Nathan Todd, Drew Harris and Houten each pitched well for Newport,

which opens District 2 Tournament play today against Dana Point “A” at

Fountain Valley, beginning at 5 p.m.

“We’ve got 11 players having the time of their lives with this team

and that’s great to see,” John Houten said. “We’ve got 10 supportive

families and these players have come a long way. We were more like the

Bad News Bears when we started but now we’re playing great and we’ll see

how far we can go in the district tournament.”