{"id":428479,"date":"2026-08-10T01:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T01:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/428479\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T01:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T01:26:08","slug":"sweetwater-valley-wins-little-league-baseball-regional-opener-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/428479\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweetwater Valley wins Little League Baseball Regional opener \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN BERNARDINO \u2014 Sweetwater Valley Little League<\/a> used every bit of its experience from last week.<\/p>\n

Seven days after claiming the Southern California championship<\/a> with a 9-0 win at Al Houghton Stadium on Aug. 2, SVLL scored in bunches to defeat Northern California\u2019s San Ramon Valley Little League 16-4 on Sunday afternoon in the opening game of the West Region tournament.<\/p>\n

\"Sweetwater<\/p>\n

Sweetwater Valley\u2019s Noah Kirk pitches during the Little League West Regional opening game against San Ramon Valley at Al Houghton Stadium in San Bernardino on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Sweetwater<\/p>\n

Sweetwater Valley\u2019s Noah Kirk hits the ball during the Little League West Regional opening game against San Ramon Valley at Al Houghton Stadium in San Bernardino on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Sweetwater<\/p>\n

Sweetwater Valley\u2019s Grant Mielke runs through bases after hitting a home run during the Little League West Regional opening game against San Ramon Valley at Al Houghton Stadium in San Bernardino on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 3<\/p>\n

Sweetwater Valley\u2019s Noah Kirk pitches during the Little League West Regional opening game against San Ramon Valley at Al Houghton Stadium in San Bernardino on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2026. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI told the boys, \u2018You already have a leg up here because we got to play here (and) already experience the nerves, the stadium, the playing surface, everything,\u2019\u201d SVLL manager Steve Winnick said. \u201cIt\u2019s mental more than physical at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leadoff hitter Noah Kirk doubled off the top of the centerfield wall and went 2 for 3 with four RBIs, and cleanup hitter Grant Mielke hit the tournament\u2019s first home run and had three RBIs as Sweetwater Valley totaled 11 hits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just went up to the plate with the mentality that I\u2019m going to hit liners,\u201d Kirk said.<\/p>\n

Isaac Ramirez tripled, reached base four times and scored twice, Tempe Tran doubled twice and had three RBIs, and Asher Giglio doubled twice, walked once and scored three runs in the win, SVLL\u2019s ninth consecutive since the beginning of section tournament play.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just shows the depth of our lineup, but now we have to be ready for whoever is next,\u201d Winnick said.<\/p>\n

SVLL advances to play Hawaii on Tuesday at 6 p.m. The West Region championship game is Friday at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to get (Kirk) to pitch on Friday, so our plan today worked perfectly,\u201d Winnick said.<\/p>\n

The curveball continues to work for Kirk, who allowed two early runs but settled down and struck out six over five innings.<\/p>\n

A week after striking out eight and allowing just two hits in 5 1\/3 innings to beat Encino, Kirk set a dominant tempo by striking out the first two batters in a quick 1-2-3 first inning on Sunday.<\/p>\n

He settled in after NorCal got back-to-back hits to briefly grab the lead in the second inning, permitting just one baserunner over his final three frames. He was pulled after the fifth on 75 pitches.<\/p>\n

\u201cI already experienced the mound so I just had to remember all the good spots to land and that got the curveball working,\u201d Kirk said.<\/p>\n

Mielke led off the fourth inning with a line drive that cleared the left-centerfield fence by inches, and SVLL went on to score six runs to take a commanding lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was halfway to second base when I saw it going over the fence,\u201d Mielke said.<\/p>\n

Mateo Ruiz reached base three times and scored two runs, and Teagan Cochran went 0 for 1 with a run as SVLL added to its lead with another run in the fifth and six more in the sixth.<\/p>\n

Jesus Cuandra came on to start the sixth and got final three outs despite giving up two runs and two hits, one walk, an error and six of the seven batters he faced reaching base.<\/p>\n

NorCal starting pitcher Mason Hall struck out five over the first three innings but lost steam after Mielke\u2019s home run, leaving the game after an error gave SoCal a 9-2 lead in the fourth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were able to stand their ground, take our punch, counterpunch and then some things started to snowball on us and got us a little out of sorts,\u201d San Ramon Valley LL manager John Audino said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have the sharpest pitching performances and they took every bit of advantage that they could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brantley Brazil\u2019s double was the only extra-base hit as San Ramon Valley lost for the first time since its district tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN BERNARDINO \u2014 Sweetwater Valley Little League used every bit of its experience from last week. Seven days…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75,127],"class_list":["post-428479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}