Logan Donnelly picked a great time to throw his first complete game.
The 14-year-old with a two-seam fastball, curve and circle change in his arsenal took the mound with the Pahrump Valley Little League Juniors facing elimination Wednesday night against Western, and he went the distance during a 12-4 victory at Mountain Ridge Park in Las Vegas.
“I just threw two-seam fastballs today,” Donnelly said, explaining that there was no need to do anything fancy against a Western team that lost 14-4 to Mountain Ridge to open the tournament before staying alive with a 22-9 rout of Lone Mountain on Tuesday.
Donnelly he said he thrived on the atmosphere of the tournament, and there was no big secret to his success.
“Just my teammates cheering for me and all the ones in the crowd,” he said. “And I liked the music.”
The sound of bats hitting balls was music to the ears of the PVLL coaches, as the offense easily handled Western pitching.
“Vinny (Whitney) always has a good game, Caden (Briscoe) had a good game, sees the ball well,” coach John McHugh said. “The whole team hit well. Tyson Reddit had some really good at-bats.”
That’s been the theme for the tournament, as Pahrump Valley scored 39 runs in its first three games, including an opening 12-9 loss to Peccole on Monday and an 18-6 win over Summerlin North on Tuesday.
Pahrump Valley players know that, despite winning a district title on that same field three years ago, success in all-star tournaments never comes easy.
“We’re always the underdogs, and we always come out here and try to win,” Donnelly said, saying he believes Las Vegas-based opponents look past them “because of our jerseys.” He said Pahrump players are well aware of that, but it doesn’t bother them.
“We always come in confident,” McHugh said. “We didn’t know what we would be facing after taking a year off. You never know how it can go.”
After Pahrump Valley’s win, Peccole earned a spot in the championship game with a 7-0 win over Mountain Ridge, which sent the host team into an elimination game with Pahrump Valley on Thursday. The winner of Thursday’s game will meet Peccole at 6 p.m. today.