ELYRIA - After scoring just two runs in the first game of the best-of-three Seniors Little League district championship series, Elyria NorthWest brought out their bats and pounded Elyria East with a mercy-rule 19-6 win at West Park on Saturday.

Leading the attack was left fielder Joe Voelz with a two-run home run and a three-run double for a five RBI game. The home run was his fourth on the year and cleared the left-center field fence in the second inning.

Manager Rob Webber thought the double was hit harder than the home run, but just never got high enough to clear the same left-field fence.

“I’ve been stroking the ball pretty well lately,” Voelz said. “I kind of missed the ball, but I got enough of it. It felt solid enough.”

Webber said his team took advantage of East’s inability to throw strikes and was extremely patient at the plate.

“They were struggling with their pitching today and our hitters showed a lot of patience and just looked for good pitches to hit,” Webber said.

NorthWest jumped on starter Scott LaMoreaux for three runs in the top of the first. LaMoreaux walked four and gave up two doubles before Cody Reaser came in to put out the fire.

East came back with two runs of its own in the bottom of the first, but that was all the offense it could muster until the fifth and final inning. By that time, the four runs were way too little too late.

Reaser’s time on the mound was short as he gave up two runs on Voelz’s home run, then injured his pitching shoulder with two outs in the inning.

The fourth inning was the big one for NorthWest, which scored 12 runs to seal the win and move into next week’s regional tournament in Painesville against the winner of the District 1 tournament.

“We had a real good hitting day today,” Webber said. “We were really ignited by Joe Voelz. He had the home run and a big double for us.

“We discussed during the game about being patient. That’s the way we approached both games. The other night against (Tyler) Shope, he ran out of pitches and we had a little bit of a lead and our guys pitched well and we defended well. All around we had a good game. Today, Brandon Victor was on pretty good, gave up a couple of runs and was strong. Jacob Lorbach came in and pitched well and then Brandon came back and finished it up.”

For East manager Tom LaMoreax the loss was tough, but he was not disappointed in his team.

“Our guys hung in there and never hung their heads,” he said. “They were very positive and they were behind each other. That’s a very good team over there with a lot of talent. We needed a little more offense. In both games we scored a total of six runs. You’ve got to score better than that to win in these games.”

Contact Ron Nenadal at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

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