RICHBORO - Pitching and defense have been hallmarks of the Tamaqua 9-11-year-old all-star team throughout the postseason.

The offense is pretty impressive, too.Tamaqua pounded out 17 hits en route to a 13-7 win over Lenape Valley in its second game of the double-elimination Section 6 9-11-year-old Little League Tournament Friday night at William B. Curry Memorial Field."It's a very good feeling," said Tamaqua head coach Trevor Steigerwalt."We've been a defensive oriented team with great pitching. The pitching was on spot (tonight). But our hitting … we just hit them out of it."We just kept hitting the ball right down the lineup. The kids battled the whole way."Tamaqua put four runs on the board in the top of the first inning on five hits as eight batters came to the plate. Tamaqua scored at least one run in all but one of the six-inning contest."That feels wonderful," Steigerwalt said of the offense. "We were able to matchup. They came at us with lefties today, and we had enough boys on the bench where we could matchup lefty-righty, and kind of neutralize that advantage they had with the left-handed pitcher."Tamaqua's hitters forced Lenape Valley starter Noah Moelter to throw 21 pitches in the first inning, sending eight batters to the plate.Leadoff hitter Brian Hinkle opened the inning with a single and scored on Cian McLaughlin's groundout. A Zander Coleman single plated Ansbach to make it 2-0.Luke Kane followed Coleman and lashed a single to left field. An error on the throw in allowed Coleman to score and Kane to go to third. Wyatt Steigerwalt singled to score Kane for the fourth run of the inning.After Lenape Valley scored three runs in the bottom of the inning, Hinkle settled in on the mound for Tamaqua, surrendering just one baserunner in each of the next four innings."Brian Hinkle came out with a lot of emotion," Steigerwalt said of his starter. "He was maybe over-throwing a little bit, and got hit there in the first two innings."But what we teach is command, command of the strike zone. He started hitting his spots. He started getting the calls, and our guys started making plays. That's what we try to do."Hinkle got plenty of run support with Tamaqua building a 13-3 lead. He departed after five innings with 64 pitches.Lenape Valley rallied for four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to cut into the deficit."Tonight, I don't think we played our best," said Lenape Valley head coach Brian Flynn. "We definitely had some errors early on that hurt us."But the boys fought back. We came back at the end there. We just fell short."Steigerwalt said it was something his team could grow from."There in the sixth inning, for one moment I saw the moment get bigger than us and that's what we talk about," he said. "We try to keep the moment what it is. It's nine boys on a field playing baseball. For a moment, we let it get a little bigger than us."But it was a learning experience. They weren't in that situation before, and that's what we're trying to teach, the fundamentals, and this is part of it - closing out games."UP NEXT … Tamaqua will next take the field Sunday in a potential championship game against the winner of Saturday's Lenape Valley-Lehigh contest. Tamaqua defeated Lehigh 15-5 in its opener. Lehigh stayed alive with a 19-8 four-inning win over Stroudsburg in the first game Friday night. "They are realizing where they are," Steigerwalt said of his team. "It's something special to see, when you see that talent actually realized on the field."HITTERS … McLaughlin and Luke Kane had RBIs in a three-run fourth inning for Tamaqua, Kane and Cooper Ansbach drove in runs in the fifth. Ansbach brought in Mason Ligenza with an RBI groundout in the sixth inning.Tamaqua 410 332 - 13 17 3Lenape Vy. 300 004 - 7 9 5Hinkle, McLaughlin (6) and Kane; Moelter, Flynn (4), Johnsson (5) and Keane. W - Hinkle. L - Moelter.