What should have been a celebratory weekend for the Astoria 14-yr-old Babe Ruth All-Star baseball team ended with confusion and some hurt feelings as the team discovered during the course of the District 1 Championship finals that they will be unable to attend the state tournament due to a shortage of players.

Astoria clinched a state tournament berth with a pair of wins on Friday, then was scheduled to play Tualatin Hills for the District 1 title on Saturday night. Playing in a double-elimination 3-team format with two seeds available for the North Oregon state tournament, Tualatin Hills eliminated S.E. Portland with an 11-2 victory Saturday afternoon to earn a rematch against Astoria in the championship game.

Needing two wins over Astoria, Tualatin Hills was on its way to a 6-0 victory when news came down that a second game, originally blocked for 11:00 a.m. Sunday, would not be played.

Astoria entered the tournament with only ten healthy players, four of whom play for Knappa's Division I Oregon Junior Baseball Association high school team. Knappa will play a regional playoff series on Friday and Saturday, conflicting with the state tournament at The Dalles and does not have enough boys in its program to overcome the loss of the Babe Ruth players. Both Knappa and Warrenton High Schools are battling just to have enough players to put a varsity team on the field next spring.

Astoria Babe Ruth was already battling attrition on a number of fronts.

Astoria High School has plenty of talented players, enough to expand its OJBA program to two teams.

OJBA is often mistakenly referred to locally as "Junior State", which is in fact the name of a completely different baseball organization. The OJBA district is comprised of teams from Astoria, Seaside, Warrenton, Knappa, Ilwaco and Clatskanie, which essentially continue the spring scholastic program with the high school coaches remaining in charge.

Due to the demands of the Astoria Division II OJBA program, coached by Brian Babbitt under the auspices of varsity coach Dave Gasser, players who played on last year's 14-year-old Babe Ruth All-Star team no longer participated in Babe Ruth, rendering Astoria's 15-year-old All-Star team defunct just one year after reaching the Pacific Northwest Regional Championship game, the best showing in the history of the program.

A couple of other players who would have been eligible for this year's 14-year-old team chose to play OJBA Division II exclusively, and other players from last year's 13-year-old team were no longer participating due to a variety of reasons, from disciplinary measures to families moving out of the area. Less than half of last year's 13-year-old roster carried over to this year's 14-year-old team after finishing in third place at the 2007 North Oregon State Tournament in Portland.

"We obviously can't be in two places at once," said head coach Dave Tapio, who has almost had to be this summer while coaching both the Babe Ruth All-Star team and filling in for the departed Mike Garcia as the interim head coach of the Ilwaco High School OJBA team. "We simply just don't have enough guys to fill a squad."

The 14-year-old team that hit the field this weekend for districts had lost badly in its last three games at the Don Rhoads Memorial Tournament in Longview and had played just one practice game against the Astoria 13-yr-olds in preparation for the postseason. However, the team stepped up and played very well on Friday, wiping out an overmatched S.E. Portland team before winning a dramatice state clincher 3-2 over a talented Tualatin Hill squad.

"I'm just totally proud of these kids," said an emotional Tapio. "We had, I think, five or six that came back from last year. Virtually half the team was new. Just a superb job. They came together and played as a team. They were competitive."

On Saturday, Astoria ran into a tough righthanded pitcher, as hard-throwing Patrick Fitzgerald limited Astoria to three hits in a complete game shutout victory.

"We just had an off day, particularly at the plate," said Tapio. "We had some hits, but they were scattered throughout the game and we couldn't put it together. Just a tough one to take."

Conor Harber had two of Astoria's three hits, the second one coming with two outs in the third inning to put runners at first and third with Astoria trailing 2-0. After Harber stole second base, Dalton Kelly flied out to right field to end the threat.

Astoria would not get another hit the rest of the way, while Tualatin Hills took advantage of three fielding miscues to plate three runs in the fifth inning, opening up a 5-0 lead. Back-to-back doubles by Francis Beecraft and Evan Jounson in the sixth inning accounted for the final run.

Dalton Kelly, one of the players Knappa's high school team will be relying heavily upon in the playoffs, pitched six innings and took the loss, while Ryan Johnson retired three batters in a row in the seventh inning.

Harber went 2-for-2 at the plate and reached base a third time after being hit by a pitch in the sixth inning.

Fitzpatrick fanned nine Astoria batters with no walks. Beecraft went 2-for-4 with two runs scored for Tualatin Hills, which draws players who are heading to 6A Metro League schools Westview and Sunset.

While understandably disappointed about being denied an opportunity to compete in a state tournament--especially in light of the fact that Astoria's Division II team has already completed its summer season with no continuation into postseason play--there is a reprieve for some of the top local players.

Seaside resident Rick Soller was on hand at Aiken Field Saturday, recruiting players for a 15-and-under All-Star team to play in a Champions League tournament at Hillsboro and compete for a berth in the USSSA West Coast Nationals. That tournament takes place at the end of July and into the first few days of August

District 1 14-yr-old Championship Game
TUALATIN HILLS 0-0-2-0-3-1-0 6-8-2
ASTORIA 0-0-0-0-0-0-0 0-3-4
W-Fitzpatrick (7ip, 3h, 0r, 9k, 0bb, 2hp)
L-Kelly (6ip, 8h, 6r, 3er, 4k, 4bb, wp)
LOB-Tualatin Hills 7, Astoria 7. 2B-Neff, Beecraft, Brasseur. S-Mathews. SB-Mathews, Neff, Parsons 2, Beecraft, Harber 2, Cain. HBP-Cain, Harber.