Petaluma American Legion Team Headed to World Series

Petaluma is on its way to the World Series.

Again.

This time, it's the youth baseball-crazed North Bay city's American Legion team, who Just like their Petaluma National Little League brethren of a year ago, will be performing on a national stage. The Petaluma Leghorns will travel to the East Coast to play for the ultimate prize in front of a national television audience later this week.

They punched their ticket to the American Legion World Series on Monday with a 9-0 victory over Las Vegas in a Western Regional final.

The tournament, made up of eight regional champions, starts on Friday in Shelby, N.C.

The Leghorns will open against Mid-South regional champion Gonzalez (La.). Petaluma will play the second game of a doubleheader that is scheduled to start at 6:30 a.m. (Pacific time).

The entire tournament will be televised on ESPN3.

The Leghorns got production from throughout their lineup along with solid pitching in the regional championship game.

Ninth place hitter Charles Parnow led the Petaluma offensively, going 3 for 4 with two home runs and four RBI.

Chase Stafford, Ryan Haug, Anthony Bender and Robert Busse each added two hits.

Petaluma extended a 1-0 lead in the top of the fifth inning when Busse drove a two-out double to right center.

Parnow hit a two-run homer in the sixth that made it 5-0 and added a another two-run blast in the seventh that broke the game open.

Winning pitcher Jimmy Flatt threw five innings of four-hit ball. He struck out two batters and allowed one walk.