SAN BERNARDINO — Sidewinder Little League manager Troy Silva said, “We don’t want to ‘taco-bout’ it. We want to be about it.”
J.J. Silva had four hits, and Troy “Taco-Man” Tewers struck out 12 as Arizona defeated Northern California, 8-1, in a West Region semifinal on Wednesday night at Al Houghton Stadium.
“It was a lot of fun out there tonight,” said Tewers, who wore a taco hat during his postgame interview. “The taco hat means you did something good.”
Silva went 4 for 4 with two doubles, two runs scored and an RBI as Peoria, Arizona’s Sidewinder Little League All-Stars defeated Rocklin’s Tri-City Little League four days after losing to the NorCal champions, 5-0, on Saturday.
“These guys are fearless,” Silva said. “The first game we played we were rusty but we’ve gotten it turned around.”
Arizona, which rebounded from the opening day loss to beat Southern California, 7-6, on Sunday, now has won consecutive games and will square off with the team from Honolulu, Hawaii in the West Region championship game on Friday at 6 p.m.
The winner of that game advances to the 20-team Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, which will be played from Aug. 17-28.
“(Hawaii) is legit and they have dudes all over the place but we’re not going to give in,” Troy Silva said. “They might be better than us on paper but we have heart and we’re going g to go compete.”
Brandon Williams, who homered twice in NorCal’s tournament-opening win over Arizona, was plunked in his first plate appearance and came around to score on a wild pitch for Tri-City’s only run.
Tewers threw five consecutive balls to start the game before settling in and accumulating strikeouts. The right-hander had two in the first inning and two more in the second before striking out the side in both the third and fourth innings.
“My curveball was getting them to swing a lot and my fastball was getting over,” Tewers said. “The big thing was not letting Williams hit two home runs off me.”
Arizona got on the scoreboard in the third inning with one out when Reid Holtorf reached on an error, went to third base on a ground-rule double by Silva and scored on a wild pitch. Silva took third on the wild pitch and scored on a passed ball to give Arizona a 2-1 lead.
Parker Lively pitched effectively into the fifth inning but allowed back-to-back hits to Holtorf and Silva before NorCal manager John Wardlaw made the switch to Travis Evans.
“Parker, toward the end, was missing his spots and then they started teeing off on him,” Wardlaw said.
Tewers put the ball in play off Evans and reached on an error with Holtorf scoring. A throwing error led to another run before two more errors resulted in two more runs to give Arizona a 6-1 lead.
“We knew they come out and swing the bat and hit the ball,” Wardlaw said. “They came in with a great game plan and executed.”
Arizona added to its total in the sixth as Holtorf and Silva singled and doubled, respectively, to lead off the inning before scoring on Tewers’ single up the middle for an 8-1 lead.
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