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Iowa barnstorm Davenport team defeats New Hampshire 5-0
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) -- Big Julian Vandervelde plays football in the fall, and eats pitchers for lunch in the summer. Sparked by Vandervelde's two-run blast, Davenport, Iowa, beat winless Goffstown, N.H., 5-0 in the Little League World Series Monday. It was the Central Region's first win in Series play since 1996. Then again, few teams from anywhere have an intimidating presence such as the 6-foot-2, 231-pound Vandervelde, who plays both linebacker and tackle. "We grow them big (in Iowa)," Davenport manager Matt Kolar said. "I don't know how many teams have one guy that can put the ball out of the park every other time up if you're not careful. And that's big because runs are hard to come by." Ahead 1-0, the first baseman slammed a two-run, 239-foot shot off the hedges beyond the center-field wall in the third inning. "I don't usually expect the home runs to go because we're facing the best pitchers in the country," said Vandervelde, who failed to hit a homer in seven regional tournament games. "I thought it was going to hit the fence when it first went off the bat, because I usually don't hit line drives all that far. But yeah, I'm glad it went anyway." In the day's other game, Tokyo improved to 2-0 by hanging on for a 9-8 win over Toronto. Two other games were scheduled: Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, took on Maracaibo, Venezuela; and Bellaire faced Vancouver, Wash. Davenport pitcher Dan O'Donnell -- 10-0 in All-Star play -- threw a two-hitter and struck out seven. Michael Mitchell had a hit and scored three runs. Alex Sobolov had a double and Jarek Ostrowski singled for Goffstown, which dropped to 0-2 following Sunday's 3-0 loss to Bellaire, Texas. In two games, Goffstown has yet to score a run and managed just three hits. "These are the best pitchers in the country and we're having a hard with the mixing (of pitches)," Goffstown manager Frank Szumiesz said. "We've just got to refocus." Mitchell opened the scoring in the first when he reached third on a pair of errors and then came home on a wild pitch.
Up 3-0, Davenport scored two more runs in the fifth inning on O'Donnell's RBI single and Vandervelde scoring on catcher's Stephen Desjarlais' errant pickoff throw to third.
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