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Youth baseball: Cape Coral National beats South to win Juniors district title
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South Juniors Ousted
Cape Coral National captured the District 9 Junior League All-Stars title with a 10-2 win against defending state champion South Fort Myers on Monday night.
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FORT MYERS — There will be a new state champion in Junior League All-Stars.
The reigning title holder -- South Fort Myers -- was eliminated Monday night by Cape Coral National.
Unlike last season, South was loaded with young players this time around.
Their inexperience showed.
"It's tough when you're supposed to be the man and you don't have a lot of experience doing it," said South manager Rich King.
Cape Coral clinched the District 9 title with a 10-2 victory at Sam Fleishman Regional Sports Complex. Up next for Cape Coral will be the Section 6 tournament that starts Friday night at Three Oaks Park in San Carlos Park.
Earlier in the district tournament, Cape Coral needed eight innings to beat South. Monday's game wasn't nearly as tight.
"I knew we could beat them, but it was surprising it wasn't that close," said winning pitcher Walter Cleary. "We played well. We hit great. It feels good to win districts."
South needed to beat Cape Coral twice after emerging from the losers' bracket.
The evening started well for South when pitcher D.J. Judge, one of three returnees from the 2007 club, belted a leadoff home run on the second pitch of the game.
But the rest of the power belonged to Cape Coral, which remained undefeated in all-stars thanks to a two-run homer from Justin Pinto in the third and back-to-back dingers from Ryan Hutson and Cleary in the fourth.
Cleary was sharp in 4 2/3 innings. The right-hander allowed four hits and two runs. He fanned seven and walked three.
"Cleary kind of overpowered our younger guys," said King.
Hutson gave up one hit and no runs in relief.
The top half of Cape Coral's order -- including Huston (3 hits, 4 RBIs), Cleary (2 hits, 2 RBIs) and Pinto (2 hits, 4 RBIs) -- accounted for the most damage in a 10-hit attack.
"Their first five hitters touched second base 17 times. That's a lot. Those are five real good hitters," said King.
Judge generated three hits and came within a triple of hitting for the cycle. Rusty Thomas, another leftover from last year's club, produced South's other two hits.
The third returnee from the state champions -- Stephen Johnson -- was hit by a line drive during batting practice. Dr. Paul Bretton -- one of the team's coaches -- put four stitches in Johnson's left ear. Johnson played, but did not start.
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