The562’s baseball coverage in 2025 is sponsored by the Millikan, Long Beach Poly, and Lakewood baseball boosters.
he562’s coverage of Long Beach Wilson Athletics is sponsored by Joel Bitonio, Class of 2009.
The562’s coverage of Lakewood Athletics is sponsored by J.P. Crawford, Class of 2013.
Wilson didn’t land the big hit often on Friday afternoon, but it came when it mattered most.
Relying on their small-ball approach, the Bruins sprinkled in two key extra-base hits and had four different players with an RBI in a 4-1 win over Lakewood on Bohl Diamond at Blair Field.
“Thats been our game all season. We don’t score a lot of runs and so we have to put ourselves in a position to try and get that base hit that we need,” said Wilson coach Andy Hall. “It’s hard when you have as many guys as we do to find roles for everyone to fill and for them to accept, but hats off to these guys for doing it.”
Russell Centanni delivered an RBI-double for Wilson to give them a 1-0 lead in the second inning, meanwhile Eddie Becker had the Bruins only other extra-base hit with an RBI-triple in the sixth. Rudy Carlos also provided an RBI-single while Gram Ludwig hit an RBI sac-fly.
“We just needed everyone to find their role,” said Becker, who went 2/2 at the plate with an RBI and a run. “If your role was to catch foul balls or to write notes, that’s your role for the team. Today my role was to bat eighth. That’s what I did and I did it well.”
Wilson received a full game’s worth of work from senior ace Ben Howard, who tossed seven innings with four strikeouts and two walks while finishing the game with no earned runs.
“I think that [Howard] was rewarded for his outstanding effort today,” Hall said. “He’s our guy on the mound. He’s just tough and he competes his tail off. We stretched him as far as we could today and he absolutely measured up.”
“I show up and perform,” Howard said. “I’m hard on myself but I try not to be too hard. I try to still have fun and just compete and play as hard as I can. If I can replicate this every week then I think we have a chance to win [Moore League].”
The Bruins started a rally in the second inning with a James Mirabile single and sac-bunt from Cade Miller. Centanni then delivered the RBI-double, a deep shot into midfield that gave Wilson the one run lead.
Lakewood came back to tie it in the top of the fourth inning after a single from Joe Dizon, before an error that allowed Nate Garcia to reach and put two on with no outs. Anthony Zepeda then found a base hit off of a bunt, before a sac-fly from Anthony Rueda to score Dizon. Howard then ended the inning with a strikeout and a groundout to minimize the damage.
Wilson flipped the switch from that point on and regained the lead after a single from Cooper George in the fifth inning and an RBI-single from Rudy Carlos to bring George in. The Bruins finished their scoring in the sixth inning after Becker’s RBI-triple scored Diego Valdez and a Gram Ludwig sac-fly scored Becker.
“I told them in the fourth inning that they needed to stop playing to lose and play to win,” Hall said of the second half of the game. “I think they flipped the switch in their head because I think that we played a little bit more determined from that point on.”
Despite the loss, Joe Dizon pitched a complete game for Lakewood and showed strong flashes of success with four strikeouts. Both teams tallied seven hits.
Wilson will continue Moore League play with a matchup against Compton on Wednesday while Lakewood will face off against Jordan.
