By Rich Bevensee
By the time Carlos Lopez strode to the plate in the bottom of the fourth inning, his impact on the championship game was immeasurable. The big strong right-hander for the 12U EEP Bandits had crafted a one-hitter to that point.
And yet he was about to add to his championship game resume anyway. He nearly ended it with one swing, as his two-out bomb landed just a few feet short of going over the fence, which would have ended the game via the mercy rule with a walk-off home run.
But Lopez still wasn’t done. When leadoff hitter Saed Almanzar beat out an infield single two batters later, the preoccupied Dodgers Nation infielders didn’t notice that Lopez was racing all the way from second and stealing home to end the game and bring the Bandits a 12-2 victory in the King Of The Diamond tournament on Sunday at Diamond Nation in Flemington.
Lopez, the tournament’s Most Valuable Player, struck out six, walked one and allowed only one hit, a solo home run to Max Sodano. At the plate Lopez went 2-for-2 with a walk and two runs scored. Over the five-game weekend he went 6-for-10 with a double, two walks, three RBI and six runs scored.
“I worked hard for this and I wanted to win it for the team,” Lopez said through his interpreter, Maximo Brito, father of the Bandits’ Lenny Brito. “This winter I worked very hard on my pitching, and throwing harder. My control was okay but I know I can do better.”
“Carlos stuck with something he knows best – which is just throw strikes,” Faison said. “Get ahead with that fastball and mix it up with the curveball. You gotta see if they can hit your fastball before you change it up.”
The Bandits, who hail from Brooklyn, rumbled through the weekend to the tune of a combined 69-7 scoring composite through five games. After going 3-0 in pool play, the Bandits ousted the Doylestown Tigers, 7-2, in the semifinals.
Carlos Lopez of EEP Bandits 12U was named the King Of The Diamond 12U MVP.
The Dodgers, from Long Island, also went 3-0 in pool play and earned a berth in the championship game by knocking off the Flores Baseball Braves, 6-5, in the semis.
After scoring three runs in the bottom of the first inning, the Bandits took control with a six-run second which saw the Brooklynites send 13 batters to the plate.
“They were poised this weekend,” Bandits coach Johnny Faison said. “They never gave up and played together as a team. They had chemistry – you could tell they’ve been together for a long time.”
The big blow in that six-run second inning came from Liam Cordero, who whacked a majestic grand slam over the center field fence.
“It was right down the middle,” Cordero said. “I knew it was gone. Once I felt the contact off the barrel, I just knew it was a home run, so I pimped it.”
Cordero went ballistic at the plate for the weekend, finishing 9-for-12 with two homers, three doubles, two walks, 12 RBI and 12 runs scored.
While the Bandits were piling up runs, Lopez kept Dodgers bats nearly silent. Sodano touched Lopez for a solo homer in the second, and the Dodgers scratched out a run in the fourth to temporarily avert the mercy rule when Jacob Schnickel walked, stole second and scored on a wild pitch.
“I walked out to the mound and told him to calm down,” Faison recalled about the fourth-inning visit. “I reminded him you don’t have to overthrow. Everybody knows you’re the hardest thrower in the park.”
Offensively for the Bandits, Ryan Perez went 3-for-3 with a solo homer, and Almanzar went 3-for-3 with a walk and two runs scored. James Rodriguez was 2-for-3 with two RBI and two runs, while Xander Figueroa and Sebastian Velasco both had an RBI single.