BY RYAN O'CONNOR

One year after coach Ken Kaiser led the Pelham 10- and 11-year-old District I Little League all-star team to a state championship, he and many of his same players faced poor luck early in the 11- and 12-year-old majors tournament.

Five days after Pelham watched 11 of its first 15 batter, including the first seven, become strikeout victims to lefty Keenan Falck, it lost another tough pitching match-up to Bow’s Jack Yvars, 5-0.

“We had a tough draw this year, I think,” said manager Ken Kaiser of facing a 5-foot-8 flame thrower in the first round and then playing Bow, which had the added benefit of having already played two games, to help set up its ideal pitching match-up.

“The rules say you can’t pitch the same guy for two consecutive games, so even beforehand, I had already looked and saw that Bow had a pitcher who had pitched the entire first game.”

Cam Kaiser pitched four innings against Bow on Saturday, June 30, struck out three and gave up three runs on four hits, two unearned.

“The kids didn’t do the things we’re accustomed to doing,” said Kaiser. “Bow just made good defensive plays in the field and had some timely hits. Right through their order, one through nine, they had guys that could put the bat on the ball.”

In Pelham’s previous game, against Manchester South, what began as a pitcher’s duel turned into a 6-2 loss.

After being stifled by Falck for the first four innings, Pelham tallied.

Leo Moro, leading off, reached on an error before Nick Neary and Steve Toscano drew walks to load the bases for Jacob Vaiknoris, who came through with a two-run single.

Justin Moran, on the other hand, held Manchester South to a solo home run with four strikeouts in four innings and 75 pitches.

But in the bottom of fifth inning, two errors that Kaiser termed critical led to three unearned runs.

“Last year, we were able to sneak up on teams and surprise them, which we couldn’t do this year because teams are gunning for you. They know who you are and you’re going to face some tough pitching,” said Kaiser. “We have some good players, but we don’t have anything like the two pitchers we went up against.”

Now, Kaiser said his team will play some local ball and has already committed to playing in the Fraser Tournament, which begins later this month.

Other players contributing to this year’s all-star team include Clint Fontanella, Alex Newton, Kevin DeAngelo, Devin DeCartat, Glen Krzeminski, Greg Spicer and Cody Enis.