BANGOR, Maine — John Doxakis pitched a complete-game five-hitter as defending Senior League World Series champion West University Little League of Houston, Texas, moved within one victory of a second straight title with a 4-1 semifinal win over Upper Moreland, Pennsylvania, on Thursday at Mansfield Stadium.
The left-hander, who will be a senior this fall at Lamar High School in Houston, rebounded successfully from an earlier start against Nogales, Arizona, on Sunday when he yielded three runs on four hits and four walks in three innings.
“I said last night I just needed to throw more strikes and give my team a chance, to let them put the ball in play because I have probably the best defense in the world behind me,” said Doxakis, who helped his team avenge Tuesday’s 5-1 loss to Upper Moreland.
“I didn’t throw my curveball for a strike as much as I wanted to. I left it up a lot, but when it did fall, it kept them off balance, and there were a lot of ground balls,” he said.
Doxakis did strike out five Upper Moreland batters while walking two and picking two runners off the basepaths during his 89-pitch performance.
“He mixed it up well, he hides the ball well, he’s a true No. 1 pitcher,” said Upper Moreland manager Ron Kohn. “We knew coming in that [Doxakis] was going to be the guy we needed to get through. We brought the kids into the hotel today when we were putting the lineup together and tried to discuss a strategy to get on base against him. We knew he threw a lot of first-ball strikes and he did, but we couldn’t capitalize on that.”
West University (4-1) will attempt to win its second straight Senior League World Series title and third in seven years in Saturday’s noon final against the winner of Thursday’s late semifinal between U.S. Central champion Holmes County, Ohio, and host Old Town.
Upper Moreland concluded its run to the semifinals with a 17-3 overall record, including 2-1 in the World Series.
West University complemented Doxakis’ pitching with errorless defense and a 12-hit attack that included two hits each from Doxakis, Jared Burch, Jacob Millender and Joe Gobillot.
“Fortunately we were able to string together some hits today and come out with the win,” said West University manager Clint Sauls.
Randy Meehl and Ryan Lowry each had two hits for Upper Moreland.
West University took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Burch ripped a leadoff single off the glove of Upper Moreland second baseman Andy Iehle, advanced to third on Jimmy Winston’s one-out single to left and scored when Doxakis skied a sacrifice fly to deep center.
The U.S. Southwest champions used three hits and two walks to extend their lead to 3-0 with two runs in the bottom of the fourth.
Burch reached base for the third time with a one-out single to right, then William James blooped a single to shallow left. Upper Moreland’s Christian Leighton forced out the lead runner at third base on a fielder’s choice grounder by Winston, but an intentional walk to Doxakis and a bases-loaded walk to Millender forced James home.
Gobillot then singled to center to drive home Winston, but a strong one-hop throw by Meehl cut down sliding courtesy runner Barron Brown at the plate to end the inning.
Upper Moreland broke up Doxakis’ shutout bid with a run in the sixth. Lowry grounded a leadoff single to left field, went to second on a high chopper to the mound by Matt Wister. Meehl then hit an even higher chopper in front of the plate, and when that infield hit was overthrown into right field, courtesy runner Dan Howald scored from second base to cut the Texas lead to 3-1.
West University got that run back in the bottom of the inning as William James singled, stole second, went to third on Winston’s deep fly to left field and scored when Doxakis grounded a single to center.
