This Saturday, West Seattle Little League‘s 11-12 All-Stars begin play in the state tournament, 2:30 pm at Port Orchard’s Art Mikelson Field (map). Their manager, John MacKenzie, shared the photo above along with the intense tale of how they got there!

West Seattle won back-to-back games against South Highline National on Saturday July 12th at PacWest fields in Burien to win the District 7 Little League title. After West Seattle lost the first game against South Highline National they needed to win 6 games in a row to advance to the Little League 11-12 year old State Tournament. “It wasn’t how we planned it but we persevered and it actually benefited our team in the long run to have to fight through the losers’ bracket,” said Manager John MacKenzie. “We had no margin for error and had to play every day to advance, allowing the team to gel.”

The bright spot of the 7-3 game 1 loss was the play of lead-off batter McNeil Fulmore, who homered in the first and scored twice. It turned out to be the 1st of 23 homeruns by 10 different players in 7 games by the powerful West Seattle squad. “After Nutt (McNeil) hit a lead-off homer to tie the score in the first I thought we were off to the races” said a West Side fan, “but that didn’t happen.”

(Read on for the rest of the dramatic play by play!)

Coach MacKenzie’s story continues:

West Seattle faced Southwest Little League in game 2 and took out their frustrations by pounding them 12-2 in 4 innings. “We got back to our pregame preparation and the bats came alive,” said Coach Fulmore “We raised our game.” Izac Bauer got the game rolling with a solo homerun in the 2nd inning his first of 4 for the tournament. Talented catcher David Meehan also homered and had 4 RBI’s.

Game 3 featured 2 grand slam home runs and 9 RBI’s by Marco Calderon as the Westsiders crushed Rainier Little League 22-7. In game 4 the barrage continued as West Seattle beat South Highline American 15-2 with Sam Cook and Cameron Wong each going yard for their first career Majors division homeruns.

PacWest Little League became the next victim in game 5 by getting hammered 19-2. This game featured Alex MacKenzie batting 3-3 with a home run, 3 runs, and 6 RBI’s, Kevin Simmons hit his first career homerun in 3rd inning and then followed it up with another in the 4th, and Griffin Bills’ incredible defense continued with a running over-the-shoulder catch in left field denying the PacWest batter of an extra base hit.

“We made it to the championship,” said an exhausted coach MacKenzie. “Now all we have to do is beat them twice.”

In the first game. the offensive onslaught continued with West Seattle scoring 19 runs. Ace pitcher Alex Coats pitched a 4-inning complete game and held the powerful Nationals to only 1 run (unearned) and 2 hits. Sure-handed shortstop Cameron Slader hit a bomb in the 3rd, scored 3 times and had 3 RBI’s to contribute the 19 run outburst.

This set the scene for an incredible Championship game. West Seattle started right-handed hurler Cody Jones who had taken a ball off his right hand index finger in warm-ups turning his fingernail blue. Jones sucked it up and threw 3 scoreless innings. With score tied 0-0 in the top of the 4th and 2 runners on Andre Moore continued with his patience at the plate by walking to load the bases with 1 out. Left handed batter Cameron Wong hit a laser to right field and cleared the bases with a 3 run triple. West Seattle added a couple insurance runs in the 5th, one off Marco Calderon’s 5th home run of the tournament, to complete the scoring 5-0.

West Seattle will be one of 13 teams competing in the State Tournament starting Saturday (July 25) with their first game at 2:30PM. All State games will be held at Art Mikelson field in Port Orchard.

That’s a short ferry ride from Fauntleroy to Southworth – here’s a map once you get to the other side.