Major league baseball all-stars heading to Joplin

Higginsville as the venue or Carrollton, it mattered not to the LaCoMo East Major League baseball all-stars.

LaCoMo East won its four games, capturing the district title.

LaCoMo East opened the event with a come-from-be-hind 6-5 victory over North-west Missouri on July 7. It followed up that exhilarating performance with a 21-0 whitewashing of Lexington in the semifinal of the winner's bracket on July 8.

Two nights later, LaCoMo East earned its way into the championship round with a 9-4 victory over LaCoMo Central.

All three of those games were played at Higginsville.

Thursday at Carrollton, La-CoMo East shut out LaCoMo Central 7-0 to claim the district crown.

LaCoMo East broke a scoreless tie with a run in the second inning and added one in the third.

LaCoMo East broke open the tight game with a four-run fourth. It added another run in the top of the sixth.

Drew Hon led the LaCoMo East offense with three base hits, a run scored and an RBI. Carson Graf and Kade Meine-ka each had two base hits, Graf scoring one run and each driving in one. Lane Mueller drilled a three-run double and scored a run. Zack Giffen singled in a run and scored one. Cameron Cooper scored two runs and Matt Gatewood one.

Gatewood tossed a two-hit gem, striking out five in the route-going performance.

Leading only 1-0, LaCoMo East blew open the game with a six-run fourth inning. It ad-ded two more in the fifth.

Then it was hold-on mode as LaCoMo Central broke into the scoring column with two in the bottom of the fifth and ad-ded two more in the bottom of the sixth.

Giffen hurled the first three innings to earn the win. He walked one and fanned six. In 1-2/3 frames, Bittiker was tagged for two runs on three hits and a walk while striking out one. Over the final 1-1/3 innings, Gatewood allowed two runs on one hit and one walk and whiffed two.

Giffen paced the offense with three singles, a run scored and three RBIs. Meineka added a single, a double, two runs scored and an RBI. Hon registered a single, a run scored and two RBIs. Cooper had a single and three runs scored. Mueller had a base hit and Graf a two-run double. Abram Frerking singled and scored, and Bittiker had a base hit, a run scored and an RBI.

LaCoMo East has advanced to the state tournament at Jop-lin July 27-30.