Justin St. Ours | Daily Press The Escanaba 11-12 Major Boys Little League All-Stars team makes a victory lap of the field with its District 10 championship banner after defeating Kingsford Monday in Escanaba.

ESCANABA — The fourth inning made a world of difference for the Escanaba Major Boys’ Little League All-Stars (age 11-12) here Monday night as they defeated Kingsford 7-1 in the District 10 championship baseball game.

Esky trailed 1-0 after three innings before doing all its scoring in the fourth.

The victory enabled the Esky All-Stars to become the last ones to receive the District 10 championship banner from administrator Don Howes, who’s retiring after 50 years.

Esky will now carry that banner to the state tournament at Grosse Pointe where it begins play Saturday at 5:15 p.m.

McKaiden Hughes, who got a pair of singles in the fourth, finished 3-for-3.

“As soon as they changed their pitcher, we started hitting off him,” he said. “I thought we might lose after they scored the first run. Mentally, it was a little hard when we were trailing. Once we got all those runs, we knew we were going to win it. Our confidence came back.”

Esky also won Monday’s opener 1-0 to force the second game.

“McKaiden had a heck of a day,” said Esky manager Dan Garcia. “He was bringing it. We had all kinds of MVPs today. We were hitting the ball right at people for a very long time. Then, the ball finally started hitting the grass. They hadn’t given up a run until today. We knew their pitching was good.”

Esky tied the nightcap on Cale Schroeder’s single to rightfield and took the lead on Nick Martinson’s single to right.

A two-run single by Lincoln Bradfield gave Esky a 4-1 cushion. Brody Ison’s single to right made it 5-1, and Willie Derkos added a two-run single to center.

Brock Flaminio scored Kingsford’s lone run on Jonah Doenier’s single to right in the first.

“They were seeing the ball today, and we weren’t seeing it,” said Kingsford manager Chris Steber. “We felt we had a little momentum coming in here today, but Escanaba definitely came ready to play. They’re a very good team. Our starting pitcher (Bradley Bottesi) was getting a little tired, yet we could have done more to help him out. We didn’t get our bats on the ball, although we still had a pretty good run. I’m very proud of the kids.”

Alex Ison added two hits for Esky, which finished with nine. Kingsford, which blanked Esky 2-0 Saturday, had five hits, including two by Jonah Doernier Monday.

Zahn Anderson and Andrew Junttila shared the mound duties for Esky. Anderson struck out two, walked two and allowed a run on five hits through 3 1/3 innings. Juntilla fanned four and walked one in 2 2/3 frames of no-hit relief.

Bottesi, who pitched 3 2/3 innings, absorbed the loss. He struck out one, walked two and gave up four runs on three hits. Doernier then fanned one, walked one and allowed three runs on six hits in relief.

Kingsford committed the game’s lone error.

Alex Ison scored on Anderson’s single to left-center in the fifth inning of the opener.

Kingsford threatened in the second frame but stranded baserunners on second and third.

Hughes and Joey Garcia combined for a two-hitter, three strikeouts and no walks.

“Our pitching was great,” said manager Garcia. “Joey pitched strong, and Lincoln and Cole had big hits for us in the second game. Kingsford’s a good team, but they were hitting right at us.”

Mason Koski took the loss despite tossing a three-hitter. He struck out seven and walked none.

Esky committed two errors, both in the second, and Kingsford had one.

“The first game was very exciting,” said Hughes, who threw 20 pitches in Sunday’s 6-5 victory over Norway. “We knew we could win it, but it was a very close game. I hadn’t been on the mound for a couple months and was pretty nervous yesterday (Sunday). Everything felt a lot better today.”

Matt Ison, father of Alex and Brody, was impressed with the field conditions.

“I want to give a shout-out to the City of Escanaba,” he said. “They did a lot of work on this field and put a lot of time and money into getting it ready. The field is in real good shape, and we received a lot of compliments on that.”