KEITH ISAAC / Staff

Golden Gate National All-Star hurler Jacob Cabrera warms up for a relief role during the section 6 tournament held at Three oaks Park. Golden Gate was defeated San Carlos 16-8.

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Dunedin’s Big League Little Leaguers didn’t have to go far to take home their second straight state championship last weekend, but a couple of Golden Gate teams may have given them reason to look over their shoulders a bit.

Golden Gate sent two teams to the tournament that was originally scheduled to feature 19 teams, but after two from the field dropped out, the local squads were left with two very different paths through the opening-round pool play.

George Tracy’s green team advanced to the semifinals before losing to the eventual hometown state champs, 4-0 in the tournament’s semifinals. The green team ended up with a 3-1 record in its pool, but the Dunedin team was just too much. Mitch Witter’s black team nearly advanced as far after winning three of its four games as well.

The black team, which also advanced to the semifinals last season, gave a heck of an effort, playing four games in the span of 24 hours and fighting off a bevy of injuries to finish as well as it did. Already short on pitching heading into the tournament because of an injury to left-fielder and pitcher Mike Slabach, Golden Gate black opened its tournament against Bloomingdale, playing eight innings before winning 8-6. Later that night, against Deerfield Beach, black won 5-4 in the bottom of the seventh, and early the next morning won 8-7 against Plant City, when Golden Gate ended a one-out bases-loaded jam by getting a force-out at the plate and a strikeout to end the game.

KEITH ISAAC / Staff

Joe-Anthony Rivera of the Golden Gate National All-Star team readies himself at the plate July 19 during the section 6 tournament held at Three oaks Park. Golden Gate lost to San Carlos by a final of 16-8.

Against Port St. Lucie, with a trip to the semifinals on the line, Yordan Cueto pitched four perfect innings before St. Lucie began building momentum in the fifth and scored four runs to win the game in the late innings.

“We were light on pitching and with one starter hurt and not able to throw and I knew that we were going to run into trouble,” Witter said. “It was unfortunate that our shortstop, Felipe Perez came down with an infection and he is already diabetic so he didn’t get a good night’s rest, plus I had two guys that were so dehydrated that they couldn’t walk.”

Despite the afflictions, several players still managed to turn in big-time performances for the big-leaguers.

As a team, Golden Gate batted .396, getting 53 hits in 134 at-bats. Luis Perez batted .600 through the four games, and Andy Baez did just as well, batting .633 throughout. Alex Witter kept pace with the gaudy stats as well, finishing the tournament with a .571 average.

“I said a couple of weeks ago that we were going up there to make some lifelong memories and we played incredible; we played every out, whether we were winning or losing, the right way and we had so much fun,” Witter said. “These guys don’t surprise me, they just make me proud every time they go out there and play.”

National’s Junior division team didn’t finish the weekend quite as well as the big-leaguers.

Golden Gate National Juniors finished its Section 6 tournament at Three Oaks Park in Estero without a win, but it wasn’t as though they didn’t put up a fight. After opening the tournament on Friday night against eventual champion Cape Coral and losing 3-1, National had to return to play just eight hours later against San Carlos, who went on to play Cape in what would be the championship game. National dropped its game against San Carlos 18-8, but returned later in the afternoon to play strong against Englewood, barely losing 3-2, in the bottom of the final inning.

“There were a couple of mistakes that were made that ended up being the turning point in the game (against Cape) and that is how baseball is,” National coach Tony Scott said. “Unfortunately we had the 8:30 p.m. game on the first night and had to play at 8:30 the next morning and we didn’t start coming around against San Carlos until the fourth or fifth, but it was too late.”

One would have never known National was all but out of contention in its game against Englewood, as the game included several highlight-reel plays and efforts like Sam Aleman stealing home to tie the score at one apiece in the top of the sixth inning, or Joe Anthony Rivera’s near complete-game performance. National may have come up short, but the appearance in the tournament was a contrast to a season ago when the team didn’t advance beyond districts.