Stone no longer square

MIRA LOMA — Jake Stone ripped a ball to right field and uncharacteristically rounded the bases for an inside the park homerun.

His face glowed as he approached his ecstatic teammates.

“His name is ‘Squares,’ just to let you know,” Costa Mesa Dinger Dawg teammate Jeff Carlyle said the game against the Washington Diamond Jaxx ended with an 8-8 tie.

The high-spirited Stone isn’t as fast as some of his speedy teammates and received the nickname from Coach Cisco Rios.

“They call me Squares because I have no wheels so they made fun of me a lot,” Stone joked after the game at the Big League Dreams Pawtucket Field. “Yeah, I’m really slow.”

Due to time restraints, the 12-U USSSA AA World Series game was called after five innings with both teams locked in an 8-8 standstill.

The USSSA World Series features teams from all over the western states. The Dinger Dawgs trailed 4-0 after one inning, but clawed their way back repeatedly.

Diamond Jaxx scored once in the bottom of the fifth inning when Hunter Nasinec’s single was lost in the sun and enabled him to score the tying run.

“Those plays get lost in the sun, that’s baseball,” Dinger Dawg Coach Bee Jay Mazur, who named the team after his dog Dinger, said. “They love to battle [and] these kids have been together so long they know how to come back in these games.”

The Dinger Dawg team features mostly Costa Mesa National Little League All-Stars and newcomers Jacob Knapp and Tyler Jones.

Jones pitched effectively for the Dinger Dawgs throughout his four innings of work.

“We got great pitching from Tyler Jones,” Mazur said. “Jones was just grooving.”

Tyler Rios, who is no stranger to clutch hitting, crushed a triple to lead off the fifth inning. In the next at-bat, Dante Capoccia tripled in Rios on a ball that went to center field.

Jessie Paz singled to right field for the RBI that gave the Dinger Dawgs eight runs.

Rios, whose grandfather Frank played professional baseball for the Minnesota Twins, is not content with losing or tying a baseball game.

“Some of my teammates say that tying isn’t as bad as losing, but if you lose a game, you don’t win the game,” Rios said. “...and if you tie the game, you don’t win the game either.”

Rios is slated to start game one of the double header that starts today at 10:10 a.m. against the Chino Hills Dirt Dawgs. Aaron Wood or Paz could start the second game that starts at 12:20 p.m. against the SoCal Diablos.

Mazur is no stranger to either team.

“We play two tough teams, but we’ve played them each and beat them each [before],” Mazur said. “[We] have to hit, throw strikes, and play a bit of better defense and we’ll be ok.”

The Dinger Dawgs plan to rely on their clutch hitting to take both games today. Mazur said he wants to go 2-0 today because of the benefits of a high seed.

“You need to win both of them to know you’re in the winner’s bracket,” Mazur said. “You want to be in the top twelve seeds and only the top twelve seeds move forward to the championship round. You want to be in the top four so you don’t play so many games.”

Should Stone repeat his performance today, he just may need to get a new nickname.

JASON KORNFELD may be reached at (714) 966-4616 or [email protected].