Entering the District V Tournament, teams often open against familiar foes. Such was the case in the 11-12 year old division when Mechanicsville National took to the Tuckahoe Little League field against Atlee.

  “Unfortunately, one of our local teams is going home with one loss tonight,” said Atlee manager Ryan Berry. “I would have rather played one of the other teams but we have got to play who we get paired against.”

  For Mechanicsville manager Donny Goodman, it did not matter who his Nationals faced. “No, because we have practiced to come out here, play ball and enjoy the game,” he said.

  Though Mechanicsville was the home team in the contest, it was Atlee that looked at home, rolling out to a quick 7-0 lead in the top of the first then cruising to a 14-4 four-inning win.

  Facing Nationals’ starting pitcher Marcus Bazala, Atlee struck quickly with a series of well-placed hits that Mechanicsville could not defend.

  Will Pulisic reached via walk then Jacob Weis singled to left. A groundout to short by Henry Moore pushed both runners into scoring position and they came home when John Gregory sent a shot to left for a double.

  Tyler Morgan reached after being hit by a pitch and Gregory came home on a single to left by Aaron Saunders.

  Brandon Loving’s hard shot to the mound drove in Morgan and a single to short from Zac Berry allowed Saunders to score for a 5-0 lead.

  Loving scored when a pick-off throw to third went wide and a single to right by Kevin Lawlor drove in Berry for a 7-0 cushion.

  But then the Nationals’ defense stepped up. Bazala fielded Pulisic’s shot to the mound to catch Lawlor at second.

  Next, short stop Cameron Chevalier then made a leaping snag on a liner from Weis to escape the top of the inning.

  “We’ve got some kids that can really swing it,” Ryan Berry said. “I felt like we were going to hit. The issue was just try to manage the pitching, make sure we stayed down and played defense against them. We needed a big start and that’s exactly what we got. Really we couldn’t have asked for anything more.”

  “They’re a good team,” Goodman said. “When they hit the ball you have to hit with them and that’s basically baseball. You can’t defend against a hit, you’ve just got to hit with them.”

  With Atlee’s Gregory on the mound, Mechanicsville got two of their first three runners on base. Playing smart at the plate, Cannon Lambert and Jordan Lafferty both reached via walk, bracketing a Gregory strikeout of Austin Moore.

  But the Atlee defense put a quick end to the threat. Chevalier’s single to short set up a tag of Lafferty and Gregory got David Hues to ground out to short.

  The Atlee bats showed little sign of cooling when they returned to the plate in the top of the second. Moore led off with a solo homer over center and Gregory stretched a shot to center into a double.

  Next up Morgan cleared the bags with a shot over the left field wall for a 10-0 Atlee lead, signaling the end to Bazala’s night on the mound as Chevalier came on in relief.

  Atlee added one more run in the inning when Lawlor’s ground-out to short allowed Saunders to score to push the margin to 11-0.

  Once again the Atlee defense played stellar in the bottom half of the set. Bazala reached on a walk then stole second to quickly get the Nationals in scoring position. But Seth Powers sent a short pop-up to short that Moore pulled in then caught Bazala on a lead-off of second for a double-play.

  The Atlee lead moved to 13-0 in the top of the third off a two-RBI shot from Lawlor that drove in Peyton Upshaw and Morgan.

  Though they faced a nearly insurmountable deficit, Mechanicsville kept plugging away.

  “I always tell them don’t give up,” Goodman said.

  The National bats came to life in the bottom of the third.

  Facing Atlee’s Lawlor, Lambert sent a one-out double to the center fence.

  Next up, Mitchell Goodman drilled a home run shot to left to clear the bags.
  Lafferty was walked and Cole Bordonie singled to short. Hues then bounced a single past first that allowed Lafferty to score.

  Bordonie then stole home to pull Mechanicsville within nine, 13-4.

  Goodman felt his kids demonstrated what he has told them all along. “No matter what the score is, you never give up,” he said. “I told them after the game, we stuck in there, we didn’t give up. We got those four runs. You’ve got to just keep chugging along.”

  But Atlee pushed the lead back to 10 in the top of the fourth when Pulisic scored on a Moore groundout to first.

  Though only the first game of the tournament, Berry felt good about the prospects of his Atlee team. “I feel real good about tonight,” he said. “We got to save some pitching, which really worked out. It’s a lot of strategy when you come into these tournaments. We’re fairly deep in pitching. I don’t know how many of our pitchers everybody knows. We have a couple of kids that don’t play travel baseball but they can pitch really well so a lot of kids haven’t seen them. So we kind of have those in our back pocket right now. So we feel pretty good about where we are.”

  Mechanicsville dropped to the Loser’s bracket and Goodman hopes they show the same resiliency for the rest of the tournament. “We lost one of our pitchers for four days because of his pitch count, but I feel pretty strong going forward,” he said. “We’ll give it a good go and we won’t give up.”

  Atlee fell to the loser’s bracket with a loss to Chesterfield the following night.

  Mechanicsville National advanced to the second round of the loser’s bracket with a win over Richmond on Thursday.

  Both teams played again on Friday. Results were not available at press time due to the July 4th holiday schedule.

  The championship game will be played on July 8, 8 p.m. at Tuckahoe field #6.