Bronco All-Stars Place Second At Regionals

The South Side Bronco All-Star team just missed a trip to the national baseball tournament, finishing second during regional competition in Seattle.

Both Bronco, ages 11-12, and Mustang, 9-10, qualified out of Spokane for the regional tournament.

The Bronco team, forced into the loser’s bracket of regionals in the second round, came back to win three straight times for the finals.

They had opened against state runner-up Bellevue, winning 8-7 with three runs in the top of the seventh inning. Bellevue had the tying run at third with one out but failed to score.

After losing to Bountiful, Utah, the team beat Puyallup and CVAC, the Washington champions and avenged its earlier loss to Bountiful.

Utah state champion Sandy ended the Spokane team’s run with a 15-4 victory in the title game.

The South Bronco stars had won a two-game round-robin against teams from North Central and North Spokane by 15-5 and 13-2 scores to qualify for regionals.

Team members were Wade Henricksen, Joel Nelson, Hank Anderson, Jacob Crisp, brothers Joe Byers and Ryan Byers, Chase Earling, R.J. Miller, Jared Hodl, Tyler Shamberger, Matt Slater, Travis Webb and Matt McClenny.

Tim Byers, who coached the Spokane Sluggers to South Division and city Bronco championships, coached the team.

The Mustangs won one of three games at regional, beating a team from Mountlake Terrace 18-8 before losing 14-2 to a Bellevue team with sons of four ex-professional football players. Their final loss was to the Utah state champions, 9-6.

“Just to get there was a good job,” said assistant coach Keith Ward. “It was a good experience.”

The Mustang All-Stars had upset the North team, winning 10-8, losing 11-1 and winning 9-7.

During the city tournament that preceded the playoffs, north teams, from which the All-Star team was chosen, had finished first, second and fourth.

South Side All-Stars included Alex King, Scott Ward, Ryan Murphy, Ryan O’Neill, Kevin Luby, Mark Nyberg, Jeremy Templeton, Jacob Haux, Curtis Heyamoto, Luke Sedler, Evan Bayne, Isaac Harmson, and Chad Bemis.

Head coach was Fred King whose Dragons won the South League championship with a 17-1 record. The Yankees finished second, the Royals were third, Mariners fourth, Cubs fifth, Braves sixth and Giants seventh during regular season.

The Dragons finished third and the Mariners fifth during the citywide playoffs.

, DataTimes