The Long Beach PONY 14s All-Stars out of Whaley Park saw another deep Summer run come to an end a few games earlier than they would have liked, as the local boys fell in the championship of the Super Regional Tournament in Covina. Long Beach was one win away from advancing to the Zone Tournament, the ultimate qualifier for the PONY World Series.
Whaley is the four-time World Series champions having won the nation’s best 14s tournament in 1959, 1965, 2008, and 2012 and have made five World Series trips since 2007; Long Beach was the runner-ups in the World Series in 2018. Rival park Heartwell made a World Series run in 2024 at the 14s level.
The Whaley 14s advanced to the Super Regional Tournament with a championship win in the Regional Tournament over South Bay, 16-0. Long Beach scored in every inning of a four-inning mercy rule victory, leading 10-0 after two innings. Mathew Pinedo threw 3.1 innings of one-hit shutout baseball, and Jacob Gonzalez closed out the last two outs of the fourth inning to finish the shutout.
Six players had multi-hit games for Whaley as Cooper Kaiser (2/3 3 RBIs), William Turner (3/4) Brayton Paculba (3/4 3 RBIs), Pinedo (3/4 4 RBIs), Kaenon Mulhearn (2/3 2 RBIs), and Leonard Graham IV (2/3) all had big offensive games.
Long Beach opened this week’s Super Regional Tournament in Covina with wins over High Desert (15-0), Santa Monica (8-3), and Covina (11-4). That put them into a championship game against Simi Valley, which Whaley lost 4-1 behind an impressive pitching performance from Simi Valley’s Trenten Nelson (6 innings pitched, 10 strikeouts, one earned run). Connor Barragan pitched well as usual for Whaley but yielded three earned runs in 3.1 innings pitched, striking out seven.
That set up a consolation championship game with host Covina, with the winner punching the second ticket to the Zone Tournament. Paculba, Gonzalez, and Dylan Stubblebine pitched well, and Long Beach outhit Covina 10-7, but found themselves trailing 3-0 going to the bottom of the seventh.
RBI hits from Kaiser and PInedo brought the Whaley boys within a run, but they ended up falling short, 3-2, to end their season.
