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Tuesday LL (11-12 b) — Red Bluff vs TBD at Anderson, 7 p.m. LL (9-10 b) — Red Bluff vs TBD at E. Redding, 7 p.m. USSSA — Shasta at Red Bluff, at RBHS, 6 p.m. MLB — All-Star Game, 5 p.m., FOX Tour de France — Stage 9, 4 a.m., VERSUS WNBA — Sparks at Shock, 4 p.m., ESPN2 Sports 1B Tuesday July 13, 2010 Three words RB boys in championship Character. Courage. Loyalty. No, it’s not the slogan printed on the new John Cena t-shirt you’re kid’s been asking for — it’s the Little League motto. Three powerful traits all of our kids should have and three words that work in unison as well as snap, crackle and pop. Usually when courage is associated in the sports world, it’s to describe an athlete gutting through an injury and putting off surgery until after the season. Surely, we don’t want 11 By RICHGREENE DN Sports Editor The Red Bluff 11-and 12-year-old Little League All-Stars are just one win away from becoming District 1 cham- pions, but more importantly they’ll get two cracks at that victory and will be rested in doing so. Red Bluff advanced to the champi- onship out of the winner’s bracket, Sunday night, with a 7-3 win over West Redding. They’ll face a familiar foe, in either Rich year-olds doing that, but that’s not to say there haven’t been some gritty performances at this year’s district all-stars tournaments. I saw Corning catcher Wyatt Hayden take his fair share of shots Friday night in the 11-and 12-year-old baseball tournament. Each time he took some deep breaths, threw back on the catcher’s mask and crouched behind the plate ready to go again. On the softball diamond I saw Red Bluff shortstop Madison Waelty trying to walk off an injury in between innings, but always ready to trot out to her spot when the next inning started. Those are courageous acts. Greene But to me, courage in Little League has to do with kids, biting their lip in a tough situation and as they realize they might fail, but digging their back foot into the dirt anyway. People tend to forget that you can show courage and things still might not work out. If there’s one sport that won’t let you forget that lesson it’s baseball. Statistically you’re more likely to strike out, ground out or pop out then you are to get a hit. For kids just coming into the times of their lives when peer pressure really starts to feel awful, it takes courage to head into the batter’s box with those odds stacked against you. If a kid doesn’t come through in Little League how- ever, he has his teammates, coaches and parents there ready to pat him on his back. That’s loyalty. Courage often fades away in a person’s life, because they forget or lose the people who will show them loy- alty. In Little League however, loyalty’s right on the other side of a chain-linked fence. If we had a bunch of, “you’ll get ‘em next times” when we struck out in life, we’d see a lot more coura- geous acts. When you put this reciprocal relationship of courage and loyalty into a kid’s life enough times throughout the course of a summer, he’ll start to build some character. There’s all sorts of camps that promise to build char- acter in your kid, but can any of them beat a couple months on the diamond? While Little League tournaments have been playing out all across Northern California and the world, per- haps no where was there a better example of character, courage and loyalty than near the beaches of Pensaco- la, Fla. this past week. It was there, in between All-Star tournament games, a 42 year-old Little League coach lost his life, while trying to save some of his players from drowning, according to news accounts. None of the children were injured, but Darin McGa- hey was killed attempting to do what he thought was right. Character. Courage. Loyalty. You better believe those traits were running through his veins. West Redding or Corning, who were playing Monday night to earn the sec- ond spot in the series. Red Bluff will play the winner at 7 p.m. today at Anderson’s Little League field. If Red Bluff wins they’ll move onto the sectional tournament. Since the tournament is double-elimination if undefeated Red Bluff loses, a second game will be played Wednesday. Red Bluff moved onto the champi- onship behind Kolby Button’s 4 2/3 strong innings of pitching against West Redding. Button struck out 12, allow- ing one hit and walking four. Jay Boone pitched the final four outs, striking out three. Red Bluff got on the board early when Lane Pritchard led off the game with a walk. He moved over on a Will Macdonald single and then stole third base before coming home to make it 1- 0. Red Bluff scored two more runs in the third inning when Macdonald and Button came around to make it 3-0. West Redding struck back for a run in the fifth inning, but in the bottom half Ryan Gamboa, Jack Murphy, Bryce Baer and Richie Nunez each had hits and scored for Red Bluff to expand the lead to 7-1. West Redding picked up two runs in the sixth inning, but Boone struck out the final two hitters to preserve the Red Bluff win. Softball Cottonwood beat Red Bluff, Satur- day, in the 11-and 12-year-old District 1 title game. Courtesy photo/Adam Swarthout Kolby Button pitches, Sunday, during Red Bluff’s 7-2 victory. The RBRenegades, an 18-and-under USSSA base- ball team, have had second place finishes and even a no- hitter this summer, but over the weekend they added another accomplishment as they won the Summer Bash tournament in Turlock. The Renegades marched through pool play 3-0 with a 3-1 win over Wiens Base- ball, a 9-6 victory over the SVMustangs and a 3-1 win against diehard baseball club 18u. Renegades go undefeated, win Turlock tourney Dais walk. The Renegades then won the championship game 7-6 over Wiens Baseball in dra- matic fashion. Wiens had an early 6-0 lead before the Renegades offense woke up in the fourth inning. Trevor Gipson and Scott Avery singled before Cliff Dais hit a double to get the Renegades on the board 6-2. Still trailing entering the sixth inning, the Renegades cut the lead in half when they were sparked by a Gip- son triple. Avery then drove in his teammate with a sin- gle and came around him- self to score. Needing two runs in their final at-bat to push extra innings, David Ratcliffe started a rally with a walk. Cody Gappa then doubled and Andrew Millner singled and the game was 6-6. Zane Medeiros held Weins off the scoreboard to start the eighth inning and the Renegades started their half of the inning with a After a single, Derek Jones came through with a walk-off RBI double and the Renegades had won the Summer Bash. Other highlights of the tournament, included a three-RBI performance by Millner in the win over the Mustangs. The Renegades also had solid pitching perfor- mances by Millner and Storm Lewis during pool play. Red Bluff’s 9-10 teams giving stellar efforts 9-and 10-year-old softball Red Bluff won the District 1 championship and will be headed to the state playoffs in Concord. After dropping their opening game 5-4 to Cotton- wood the girls had to battle through the loser’s bracket to get it done. Red Bluff started their win streak with a 21-0 win over Central Tehama. They then beat Foothill 8-3 behind 11 strikeouts from Kylee Clatty. Red Bluff beat Corning 8-2 in the semis to set up a rematch with Cottonwood in the championship series. Needing back-to-back wins, Kennedy Somavia cleared the bases in the first game with a double to give Red Bluff a 5-3 win. That set up a winner-take-all final game with Cotton- wood that stretched into extra innings. Tied at 8-8 in the eighth inning, Red Bluff loaded the bases and forced home a run on a walk to take a 9-8 lead. Relief pitcher Braydi Johnson held Cottonwood off the scoreboard and sent Red Bluff to Concord. 9-and 10-year-old baseball The boys are in the championship series, beginning at 7 p.m. today in East Redding, at the District 1 play- offs after winning their first four games of the tourna- ment. Tanner Tweedt has scored 11 runs during the tourna- ment and is batting .667 to lead the team along with Justin Nichols. Nichols is also leading the pitching staff, having struck out 10 batters in 13-plus innings of work. Red Bluff reached the championship with a 12-2, Courtesy photo The Red Bluff 9-and 10-year-old Little League Softball All-Stars team of manager Bobbi Wellman, coach Mel Clatty, coach Tammy Sheppard, coach Chris Nichols, Braydi Johnson, Kaitlyn Thompson, Megan Boone, Gracie Nethery, McKenzie Colgate, Evoni Salinas, Aubree Akins, Kylee Clatty, Hope James, Maggie Sheppard, Brooke Brown, Michaela Mason and Kennedy Somavia celebrate their District 1 championship. mercy-shortened win over host East Redding. Casey Moore, Tweedt, Nichols and Kolby Potter all had multiple hit performances in the win. Also contributing to the team have been Andrew Avilla, Tristen Hobart, Ian Hoskins, Mario Martinez, Conner Mckenzie, Ian Skjegstad, Drew Stacy, Nolan Stacy and Colton Youngblood.