Long Beach PONY had been streaking along through their tournament play without a loss—until last night, when they hit a buzzsaw in Victoria of Riverside, losing 14-1 on the mercy rule in five innings.

Victoria, whose current team won last year’s younger age division World Series, hit everything Long Beach threw, racking up 11 hits in the first three innings.  Coupled with an untypically sloppy defensive effort from the local boys in blue (eight errors), and it made for a rough evening in Glendora at the Super Regional Tournament.

Fortunately, there’s still hope—if Long Beach wins tonight against Glendora, who played twice yesterday to stay in the tourney, they’ll advance to face the consolation winner of the Whittier bracket—most likely Heartwell.  The winner of that game will play the loser of Victoria/Cypress.  In other words, to advance to zone, Long Beach needs to win three games in a row now—not easy, but not impossible either.

Heartwell also suffered a setback with a loss to Cypress, 7-5.  They’ll face Redlands tonight—Redlands played two games yesterday and won them by a total of three runs. 

Heartwell’s game will be at 5pm in Whittier and Long Beach will play at 6pm in Glendora—hopefully they’ll face each other on Tuesday, we’ll keep you updated!