Petaluma Valley’s Roland Insurance claims TOC

Roland Insurance reduced baseball to a simple game in the finals of the District 35 Little League Tournament of Champions title game, throwing strikes and catching the baseball.

The Petaluma Valley Little League champions combined the pitching of Nico Antonini with a solid defense. led by the glove work of shortstop Dante Antonini to defeat the Santa Rosa American Little League champion Rockies, 4-2, in the finals of a single-elimination tournament that featured champions from most District 35 leagues.

Roland defeated both other Petaluma Major League champions on its way to the championship game, topping Pinky’s Pizza from the Petaluma National League, 3-1, and Petaluma American Little League champion Unique Insurance, 6-4.

Antonini didn’t walk a single batter in a route-going, six-inning performance that he wrapped up in just over 60 pitches. He allowed five hits, with three coming in the final inning when he tired a bit. He struck out eight. Brother Dante led a perfect Roland defense that played errorless, sometimes brilliant, baseball. It was Dante who made two sparkling plays in the first inning, one on a pop-up that looked like it might drop in short center field, and one on a smash hit right at him that he knocked down and gunned to first for the out.

In the sixth inning, when the Rockies rallied to make things tense, Dante Antonini made two crucial plays on grounders, the last to end the game.

The Valley League champs also received a spectacular catch by Dustin Love on a long soaring drive to center field and another outstanding game from steady catcher Dylan Gard.

Roland didn’t have a lot of offense against lanky Rockies pitcher Ryan Healy who allowed four hits over four innings before running afoul of the pitch-count rule.

The Rockies handed Roland a run in the first inning when the center fielder dropped Dante Antonini’s routine fly with brother Mario already on vase via an infield single. Mario didn’t score on the error, but did move to third, where he was in a position to score on Ben Wilson’s single.

Dante Antonini didn’t give Rockies outfielders a chance to drop his fourth-inning fly, swatting it over the left-center field fence for a homer that made the Roland lead 2-1.

The Petalumans scratched out what would stand as the game-winning runs in the fifth inning, fashioning a rally off Rockies relief pitcher Nolan Frost on a key walk to substitute Kory Huppert, Nico Antonini’s single, an infield hit by Wilson, a walk to Will Carothers, and Zach Baird’s RBI infield hit.

Nico Antonini, who had struck out the side in the fifth inning, had his only real trouble in the sixth, giving up back-to-back doubles to Jack Lazark and Frost that plated two Rockies runs before Healy hit a grounder into the death chamber that is Dante Antonini’s glove for the final out that made Roland Insurance king of all District 35 league champions.