Over Memorial Day weekend, the North Coast Athletics competed in the USSSA-16U State Championship Tourney at Elk Grove High School.

The tournament would feature five games in two days, a grueling schedule to say the least.

For the first game, the Athletics would face a very tough Tri-Valley Titan team from Livermore, Calif., losing to the Titans by a final of 7-0. The tournament did not start the way the team hoped, but the Athletics never gave up and continued to compete.

The Athletics fared much better in the second game by bouncing back with an 11-2 victory over Marin Tribe. The Athletics jumped out to an early 2-0 lead following Elliot Hee's two run single in the first inning. The whole team remained hot all game finishing off the contest with a balanced attack.

Hee finished the game 2-2 with two runs scored and four RBIs, Derek Shea went 3-3, Abraham Vargas finished 1-2 with a double and four RBIs, and Tony Melia rounded out the attack going 2-3 with two runs scored.

The third game never played out as the Athletics won the contest following a forfeit.

Game four did not turn out as well as the Athletics lost 9-0 in a rematch with the Titans. The Athletics could not catch a break after several unfortunate calls put the game out of reach. The Titans ripped off all nine runs in the third inning after capitalizing off the umpire's miscues.

The fifth and final game against Marin Tribe ended with the Athletics being narrowly edged by a final score of 3-2.

A tough fifth inning put the Tribe ahead 3-0. The Athletics responded right back when both Matt Freitas and Melia walked to get on base, setting up Richard Tamborini's two run double to cut the lead down to one.

Despite a late rally in the final inning of play, the Tribe held on for the 3-2 victory.

The Athletics gave everything they had all weekend and put together some solid performances to build on.