GARDNERVILLE - Simply put, the Carson City 10-11-year-old Little League all-stars have their backs against the wall.
North Valleys' Justin Luevano singled home Cody Duke with the winning run with one out in the sixth inning to snap a 10-all tie and give his team an 11-10 win over Carson City on Wednesday night at Aspen Park.
Carson fell to 0-2 in pool play and will play tonight against Sparks Centennial, which is 2-0. Reno National leads the pool with a 3-0 record, followed by Sparks Centennial, North Valleys 1-2 and South Tahoe 0-2. The first tie-breaker is head-to-head and then it goes to run differential.
It's certainly not the position that Carson City manager Cris Holton expected to find his team in heading into the final two days of pool play.
"We win two and we'll be in," Holton said. "If we only win one (of two) we have a chance to sneak in. South Tahoe hasn't won a game yet. We'll have to beat them.
"This is on me. I should have left John (Holton) in and burned his pitch count. We had a 7-3 lead and he'd struck out five or six batters. I thought the 7-0 lead was enough."
It might have been except for a subpar effort turned in by the Carson City pitchers in the sixth. The three pitchers walked three, gave up four hits and another batter reached on an error.
The big hit for North Valleys was a bases-loaded double to right-centerfield by Cody Duke that tied the game at 10. Luevano, who was 0-for-3, followed with a deep drive to centerfield that easily scored Duke because Carson's centerfielder threw to second base instead of throwing home.
North Valleys' seven-run rally wiped out a nice offensive day by Carson. The locals pounded out 13 hits, two each by Asa Carter, P.J. White, Ryan Pope and Conner Leahy.
Carson grabbed a 2-0 lead in the second when Pope tripled and scored on Carter's ground-rule double. White followed with a run-scoring single.
Carson extended its lead to 7-0 in the third, scoring five times on four hits and a North Valleys error.
Leahy doubled, moved to third on a single by Holton and scored on Pope's single. Carter walked and White followed with a two-run single. Carson's final run scored on a passed ball.
North Valleys bounced back with three in the bottom of the third, as the first four batters reached base. John Holton left after the first two batters of the inning. Kyle Kunz faced the next two batters and was replaced by Chea Zevnick, who got out of the inning without any further damage.
North Valleys cut the lead to 7-4 when Jeremy Offley was safe on an error, stole second and scored on a single by Logan Heinz.
That set the stage for the wild seventh, as North Valleys came through with a mighty rally, which ended on Luevana's game-winning single off Conner Pradere.