Announcement
On Saturday, March 18th, the Alameda Little League celebrated with it's Opening Day Ceremonies and it also turned out to be a banner day for the Northridge & McGuinnes Dodgers. Starting with having blue skies and warm weather, the Dodgers were then awarded 1st place in the Major Division banner contest. From there, the Dodgers went into their first game of the season. John Kempel was given the pearl to start off the season and threw a gem for 3 innings facing 13 batters and striking out 9. Reliever Kyle Leong, then came in for the final three innings and took off where Kempel left off by facing 9 batters and striking out 6. The only run scored by the opponents was on a throwing error.
Both pitchers also helped their causes by supplying fuel for an combined offensive effort of 6 runs on 5 hits with 6-RBI's. Kempel going 2-4, 4 runs, 2-RBI's, BB. Leong contributed by going 3-5, 2 runs, 4-RBI's. However, this being a team game, additional support came from Byron Buckley III went 3-4, 1 run, 3-RBI's, BB, Trevor Toy going 1-4, 2 runs, BB, Keegan Tatum going 1-3, 2 runs, BB. 10 year old Ken Swain in his first Major Division start drew 4 BB's on 24 pitches with 1 for an RBI. All in all, the Dodgers ended the day with 11 runs on 11 hits and a nice start to a long season.
The Dodgers have taken all this in stride and have put this game and day behind them as they know they now need to prepare for another tough opponent, the Athletics, in their next game.
