HAMILTON — Cash Jones didn’t mess around on the mound Tuesday night. The right-handed hurler put West Side Little League in a good position defensively.
His teammates took care of the rest.
Jones tossed a complete game, had six strikeouts, gave up no earned runs and only walked one batter, and West Side plated five in the second inning on its way to a 7-1 victory over Galion in the Ohio Little League state tournament at West Side Little League.
“I was feeling good,” said Jones, who turns 11 years old on Friday. “I just wanted to throw strikes, not walk anybody and let my defense do all the work.”
Jones said his off-speed and signature quick pitches were working the best. The quick pitch is something he just established in June.
“As kids grow, they get around other kids, play a lot of baseball and tend to pick up on things,” West Side manager Ken Coomer said. “Cash is one of those kids that when he finds something, he’s going to try it. Anything that makes him better, that’s what he does. I think he’s almost perfected that pitch. He just does it naturally now.
“He’s just one of those kids that wants the ball in his hands,” Coomer added. “He’s been pitching since it seems like he was 5. You can just tell when he’s on the mound that he just has that confidence. That’s what I call swag. He’s not going to blow it by you or anything like that. He comes out here, and he does what he does. You can’t ask for anything more.”
West Side plays the New Albany-Galion winner in the state championship game at 7 p.m. Thursday at West Side Little League. New Albany and Galion face off at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the loser’s bracket.
If West Side loses Thursday, the winner-take-all title game is set for 7 p.m. Friday — with the winner heading to the Great Lakes Regional (Aug. 5-9) in Whitestown, Indiana. West Side is going after its 21st state title and a sixth trip to the Little League World Series (1991, 1993, 2007, 2010, 2021).
“We’ve been doing good,” Jones said. “We’re practicing every single day — working our butts off. We’re very confident, trying to win and do our best.”
Braydon Caudill led the game off with a double, moved to third on Brady Quick’s groundout and scored on Parker Moyer’s groundout to give West Side a 1-0 lead.
Jordan Malloy made a nifty unassisted double play at shortstop in the bottom of the first, and West Side went on to score its five runs in the top of the second highlighted by a Preston Baker two-run triple.
“In my head, I was just thinking that I was going to kill it — blister this dude,” Baker said. “I was thinking of the gap. Then I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh. I did it.’ I just started running as hard as I could.”
“That got us more of a comfort zone after that big triple,” Coomer noted of Baker’s hit. “Like I’ve always said, we’re doing a great job of the small things. We’re doing that very well, and that’s what we kind of hope happens. We do the small things, and then boom, Baker provided that.”
West Side, which surrendered its only run in the third, was led offensively by Caudill (2 for 2, run, walk), Braeden Sparks (1 for 2, run, walk), Jones (1 for 3, run), Eddie Frazier (1 for 1, run, walk), Malloy (1 for 2, run, RBI), Zaylan Anderson (1 for 1, two runs, RBI, walk), Baker (1 for 2, two RBI) and Alijah Holmes (1 for 2, RBI).
Holmes had the best plate appearance of the tournament — an 11-pitch at-bat when he ripped a double down the left-field line to score Anderson for an insurance run in the fifth. Holmes is West Side’s extra hitter and bats last in the lineup.
“Our middle of the order and the bottom of the order, I’m not going to say has carried us, but they’re giving us a little extra push — which is great,” Coomer said. “But if we get that together with our top five hitters, and put it all together, then we have a shot.”
“We work every day — hard,” Baker chimed in. “Two hours, two times a day. We work — I can’t say what I really want to say — our butts off.”
