Five Burnaby baseball players provided much of the clout for the Hastings All-Stars at the B.C. Little League provincial championships in Trail on Saturday.
Pitcher Cole Dalla Zanna allowed just two hits and struck out eight batters as Hastings overwhelmed White Rock 20-0 in the provincial baseball championship final for 11 and 12 year olds.
In an awesome display of power at the plate, provincial batting leader Steven Moretto of Burnaby helped lead Hastings with two runs on three hits, while leading all hitters with a .727 batting average through the B.C. tournament.
Moretto also led all sluggers with four home runs and a total of 16 runs batted in.
Despite Moretto's huge numbers, Hastings' manager Vito Bordignon says this year's team is very well balanced.
"We have very good pitching, our bats one through nine are dangerous, and the biggest thing is depth. If someone is not performing, others will step in for us. We've had quite a lot of four-inning games," said Bordignon.
Hastings completely dominated the provincial tournament, scoring a total of 100 runs in seven games played, while allowing just 14 against.
In the final game, leadoff hitter and third base Kolby Buljevic of Burnaby knocked in three RBI on three hits, including a pair of home runs, while also scoring four runs himself. Carson Ho of Burnaby also had a big game, scoring twice on three hits and two RBI.
Noah Hanson-Stafford, with one RBI on a solo dinger, and Dalla Zanna also provided two runs and a pair of hits to the win.
Dalla Zanna also posted three wins on the mound at the provincials, including 18 strikeouts and a sizzling tournament-best 1.27 earned run average.
Hanson-Stafford finished the tourney third overall at the plate with a .650 batting average, including 13 total hits and nine RBI. Buljevic had 11 hits and six RBI for the East Vancouver/Burnaby association.
In the semifinal, Hastings blanked Dunbar 8-0 on Ataru Yamaguchi's three-hitter. Ho, Moretto and Hanson-Stafford, with two, batted in all four of Hastings' RBI.
With the win, Hastings won a spot at the national championships in Edmonton which runs from Aug. 4 to 7.
"We're going to go with the same mentality and try to win as many games as possible," said Bordignon, who was with the '09 Hastings team that went all the way to the Little League World Series. "Our first game is against Ontario. We just got to go out and play like we can."
The winner of the Canadian championships will represent Canada at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvannia from Aug. 16 to 26.
A team from Hastings won the Canadian championships and went all the way to the Little League World Series in 2009.
