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Little Giants: Manteca rolls to Minor League TOC title
Bulletin sports 2020-21
The Manteca Giants display the championship banner won in the District 67 Minor League Tournament of Champions on Monday. - photo by Contributed

Matthew Barber and Brian Geer knocked in two runs apiece in a four-run fourth inning Monday night to help lead the Manteca Giants to a 9-2 win over the Mountain House Cardinals for the District 67 Minors Tournament of Champions championship banner at the T.W. Patterson Sports Complex in Patterson.

Geer (three RBI), Terrance Montgomery (RBI, double, three stolen bases), and Layton Cozby (two runs, two stolen bases) were all 2 for 3 to lead a viscous Manteca offense that scored 42 runs in the last three games of the tournament.

“We started out slow at the beginning of the tournament with a couple of close wins,” Giants manager Steven Kelso said. “After we lost to Northgate we told the kids it was do or die and we started hitting the ball and put up a lot of runs with some good pitching and sharper defense toward the end.”

Xavier Hardiman (1.2 innings pitched, two strikeouts) and Roman Christensen (4.1 innings, five strikeouts) split the pitching duties for Manteca.

 

Manteca 18, Patterson 1

After emerging from the consolation bracket, the Giants scored the inning-maximum of five runs three times Saturday on the way to rolling to a four-inning mercy-rule-shortened thumping of the Cardinals.

Montgomery (3 for 3, two RBI, home run, double) got the ball rolling for Manteca in the first inning with an inside-the-park home run for a 1-0 lead. Geer (2 for 2, three RBI, three runs) singled in Dominick Kotta and then came in to score on an error to make the score 3-0 after one inning, the only frame the Giants did not score five runs.

Kotta added a two-RBI triple in the third inning when Nuno and Hardiman had RBI singles. Isaiah Todd ended the second inning with a two-RBI double and after five walks and a hit batter in the fourth inning, Montgomery doubled in Barber for Manteca’s final run.

Hardiman (two runs, RBI) went the first 2.2 innings for the Giants, striking out five with two hits, no walks and no runs.

Aydin Karakateli snuck a grounder through the middle of the infield that knocked in Patterson’s only run with two outs in the fourth inning.