After dominating the first two games of the Little League United States West Regional Tournament — a 11-0 defeat of Oregon and 5-0 victory over Montana — and walking off Arizona 6-5 on Saturday, the Turlock American Little League Seniors saw their season come to an abrupt end after suffering a pair of losses over the weekend.

On Sunday, the Northern California state champions gave up seven runs to host Oakland Little League in the sixth inning in their eventual 13-3 loss. The next day brought an elimination game against Southern California that resulted in an 11-1 loss for the Turlockers. 

Southern California ended up winning the entire tournament and advancing to the 2024 Senior Little League World Series in South Carolina with a 7-5 win over Oakland. Turlock’s efforts earned them third place in the entire western region.

“The boys played their hearts out. They were the NorCal state champs and that is something they can take with them forever,” the coaching staff of head coach Courtney Keyler and assistants Joey Souza, John Arellano and Joel Ficher said in a joint statement. 

Saturday’s game against Arizona saw a total of five lead changes in the seven innings of play. Fortunately for the Turlock All-Stars, the last one mattered most. With runners on second and first and Turlock trailing 5-4, Brock Arellano drove in both teammates on a single to advance to the semifinal round. 

Turlock carried their momentum into the matchup with Oakland. After 4.5 innings they found themselves leading by a 3-2 score thanks to a two-run single by Braiden Fuentes in the second and Kohen Ficher scoring on an error an inning later. Oakland took a 6-3 lead in the fifth after a bases-clearing triple before the floodgates opened in the sixth.

Monday’s game against Southern California was a struggle from the jump as Turlock was tagged for five runs in the first and another three in the second. They scored an additional run in the fourth and two more in the seventh. Turlock’s lone run came across on an RBI single by Ficher in the fourth.

Despite the clock striking midnight on their Cinderella season, Keyler is hopeful that Turlock American Little League can get strong commitments from eligible players from this year’s team and those in the younger age groups in order to field a similar team to try to defend their state crown and make another run in the regional tournament. 

As of now, though, it’s a time of reflection for the team that two weeks ago clinched Turlock American Little League’s first NorCal state championship in the organization’s 69-year history.