Vienna All Stars Win District 13 Championship

The Vienna All Stars ended the District 13 Babe Ruth Senior League Tournament undefeated, winning the championship game against the Springfield All-Stars 12-1 on Saturday.

The mercy-rule win caps off a weekend of offensive dominance from Vienna, who outscored opponents 31-9 over three games.

"Two weeks ago, we didn't hit the ball for nothing and lost both games by one run," Coach Keith Ashcraft said. "We were capable of having this kind of offense, but it didn't happen then and we brought it together for this weekend."

Vienna opened scoring in the second inning, tallying four runs — two off an RBI single from catcher Bruce Briglia and two unearned. They added two more runs on RBI from Patrick Eason and Andrew Di Francisco in the fourth.

In the bottom of the fourth, Springfield tallied its only run — unearned — of the game.

The next inning, Vienna solidified its win with six runs — three unearned — that went unanswered. Eason added two more RBI to his stat line, while Di Francisco tallied the last of the game.

Vienna capitalized on Springfield's mistakes with heads-up base running, which often caused the mistakes themselves.

"We're very aggressive on the bases, especially early in the games," Ashcraft said. "I push runners all day long. ... We've got good speed, and as a coach you take advantage of what you've got."

The squad, most of whom have played on the same Babe Ruth team since they were young kids, will head to Henrico for the Virginia Senior 16-18 Babe Ruth League Tournament this weekend. They will first face Augusta from District 4 at 4 p.m. Thursday. Click here to see the tournament bracket.

"We'll have a lot of [batting practice] this week. My defense is pretty set. These guys have been playing together for a few years, so we just want to give them the reps with the bats this week," Ashcraft said. "They're a great group of boys and they have a lot of fun playing the game. That's what you want."