By STAN HUDY
www.cliftonparkworldseries.com
CLIFTON PARK – They went further than any other Clifton Park Babe Ruth World Series host team had gone before.
They beat the biggest team in the 13-year-old Babe Ruth World Series tournament on the opening night; they used their last at-bats to win a second game in pool play before falling back to Earth with a loss. They picked themselves back up and put the bat on the ball and advanced to the national semifinal. They almost made it look easy Friday morning, advancing to the World Series championship game and celebrating on the field like they won the title.
On Friday night, it was just baseball, 13-year-old baseball and it wasn’t their night.
It was Tri-Valley, California’s.
Tri-Valley captured the 13-year-old Babe Ruth World Series championship with a 12-0 mercy-rule shortened contest in five innings of play to capture the fourth Babe Ruth World Series title for the California program since 2004. They rode the arm of Devon Rocha who no-hit the Clifton Park Bulldogs with one pitch…a fastball.
Rocha went five innings, didn’t allow a hit, walked six and struck out five. Not a stellar night on the mound, but good enough to earn the championship victory.
“The defense did really good, I have an amazing catcher in Mitch Briggs, who I take for granted at times,” Rocha said. “And everyone made plays when they needed to. It was a group effort.”
Tri-Valley plated three runs to open the contest on three hits and taking advantage of two Clifton Park errors.
“We were lucky to be the visitor tonight,” Tri-Valley coach Randy Moore said. “How great is it to go out there with a three-run lead?”
It proved to be all Rocha would need, spotting his fastball and defying the Clifton Park Bulldog offense to try and stop him.
With the contest still in reach, the California visitors posted six-runs up on the scoreboard in the fourth inning on just three hits and a walk. It was an inning that hurt both teams the most.
Starter Liam Harrison reached out for a sharply hit bouncing ball with his pitching hand, which ended his night and called Greg Waldek into action.
Waldek had a rough night, hitting three batters in the inning and then paying for it when Joe Vranesh hit a two-run single to left field.
With the 10-run rule opportunity in front of them, Tri-Valley went for the jugular, posting three more in the top of the fifth inning for the 12-0 lead.
It was up to the Bulldogs to stem the tide, needing to put three runs up to stop the contest from ending early, but they couldn’t get around on Rocha.
In the end, they saw the California boys celebrate on their home field, but still made history.
“They were a rag-tag group,” Frey said about the team that he selected six months ago. “They weren’t too big, they didn’t know the game well, but they came together like nothing I have ever seen before. All the credit goes to them, they worked their butts off and it paid off.”
To go from a team that had to re-learn skills and pick-off moves to turning double plays and situational base running, Frey will take the history and the experience.
“If I brought home anything with these guys I would be proud,” Frey said. “We had the run we had so it’s hard to take home the silver (second-place trophy); we knew it was right there for us. Looking back this is a surreal experience. I can’t believe that we’re in the finals of the game, so I’ll take what I can get.”

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