Graney: Mountain Ridge manager recalls the day before U.S. title game in LLWS

They selected a practice field far from the bright lights of Lamade Stadium, away from where the U.S. championship game of the Little League World Series would be played the following afternoon in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

They wore T-shirts and tennis shoes. There weren’t a pair of baseball pants or cleats in sight.

Mountain Ridge in 2014 was the first team from Nevada to qualify for the LLWS, advancing to the point at which another Las Vegas team finds itself.

Summerlin South will face Metro Region champion Fairfield, Connecticut, for the U.S. championship at 12:30 p.m. Saturday on ABC.

Ashton Cave was the manager of that special Mountain Ridge team, and never have I covered someone who understood the moment better. Who never forgot — amid the tens of thousands of fans and ESPN cameras and overall financial extravaganza the LLWS had become — that he was dealing with 11- and 12-year-olds.

The minds of youth.

They hit some that day before the big game. Had some relay drills. Tried to replicate the atmosphere in Lamade, which is impossible.

They laughed a lot. They were loose. They were, well, kids.

No nerves

“I don’t think they were nervous,” Cave said Thursday of his Mountain Ridge team after Summerlin South defeated Irmo, South Carolina, in the losers bracket final. “They knew the expectations and level of pressure. But they had felt that through districts and state and regionals. When you win 17 straight games, all of them become pressure-filled.

“We also took them to the batting cage and talked about their individual contributions to get where we were. To remind them why they were on this team. Expressing our gratitude to them. We were on the highest stage because of them.

“Whatever was going to happen in the game would happen. The game is the game. But we wanted them to have that mindset that they were there because they earned it.”

Mountain Ridge lost to the Great Lakes Region champion 7-5 in that U.S. championship game, but history will tell you the Las Vegas team won 6-0 via forfeit. It was a result of the Chicago team later being stripped of its title for violating rules and rewriting boundaries.

And yet even then coaches and players from Mountain Ridge kept things in perspective. They were shipped the U.S. championship banner in a large envelope — no note of congratulations, no suggestions on where to display it, no instructions on protocol — but always reminded anyone asking that they had lost the game.

Cave used the situation as a teaching lesson. In a time when Little League International lost its way by succumbing to the temptation that tens of millions of dollars in TV revenue provide annually, it took the manager of a team from Las Vegas to remind those what mattered most. That there was a tale behind the banner that needed to be told.

Mountain Ridge stole Las Vegas’ heart with its LLWS run. The story that team wrote struck a prideful note across the city. Watch parties grew with each passing game, and a group of boys became overnight celebrities throughout the valley.

The same thing is happening now.

A star’s thoughts

“I’ve watched the (Summerlin South) games and have been keeping up,” said Austin Kryszczuk, the star of the Mountain Ridge team and a former UNLV standout. “It would be super cool if they won. We obviously broke down some walls when it came to Nevada Little League, but another wall that needs to come down is to get to that championship game and ultimately win it.

“I would say things were pretty normal the day before our (U.S. championship game). We were kind of rolling. It was just another day. We were just an extremely close team. We had been playing against each other since we were 8 years old and then spent three to four summers in All-Stars. At the point of the (LLWS), we had been together 24/7 for like a month and a half. Definitely some strong relationships built there.”

It also can be said for Summerlin South. It plays for the U.S. championship Saturday, for one of those banners, for an opportunity to then face the International champion for the LLWS crown.

What a ride it has been. Sort of like the one born in 2014 from a manager and group of players who will forever be remembered as those who, yes, broke down those walls.

Ed Graney, a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing, can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on X.