Behind the pitching and hitting of Regen Mazura, the Oro Valley Little League 11U baseball team advanced to the championship of the state tournament held at Flagstaff with a 5-1 win Saturday over Chandler National North.
Mazura went 2 for 3 with two runs, and as the starting pitcher, he went 4 2/3 innings with seven strikeouts and two walks.
Oro Valley, 8-0 in the district and state tournaments, advances to the championship Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Dawson Field at Flagstaff. Its opponent is to be determined after an elimination bracket game Sunday. The team that emerges from that game must beat Oro Valley twice.
Nogales, which lost to Oro Valley in a winners bracket semifinal game Thursday, is still involved in the tournament in the elimination bracket.
Oro Valley rallied for four runs in the bottom of the fifth — started by a leadoff double by Mazura — to pull away from Chandler North on Saturday.
Christian Soder went 1 for 3 with a run. He also allowed only one hit in 1 1/3 innings with two strikeouts and no walks. Sito Graves went 3 for 3 for Oro Valley and Peyton Carson was 1 for 2 with a run and two RBIs.
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon.
