GUILDERLAND — The 10-under Guilderland Little League all-star team — whose players are 9 and 10 years old — won both its district and sectional tournaments, to go to state competition this year.

In state competition, the Guilderland boys came in third, winning their first two games before succumbing in their third and fourth. The team finished third among about 190 Little League all-star teams ol players aged 8 through 10 that participated at the tournament level this year in the state.

“It was one heck of a ride,” said Rob Scholz, father of one of the boys on the team. Scholz said the season involved “wild-ending clutch hits, great pitching, and hard-to-imagine defense played by 10-year-olds.”

The two tournaments that the Guilderland team won were both clinched with walk-off hits, said Jon Phillips, the team’s coach and the president of Guilderland Little League. It was his first sectional win in 18 years as a coach, he said.

His son, Dylan Phillips, made the walk-off hit that won the District 13 tournament against Bethlehem. There were two outs; the bases were loaded; and it was 10 to 9.

“I told him to try to walk,” said Coach Phillips. The boy scrunched down to try to make himself as small a target as possible.

“The first pitch was a ball, and I thought, ‘Maybe this will work,’ Phillips said. “The next one was a strike, so I gave him the signal to swing away.”

Phillips couldn’t really see what had happened, he said. He thought the ball had been caught and didn’t realize it had been dropped. “I saw my runner on third base and told him ‘Run!’ just in case,” he said.

That hit brought in two runners: Carmine Petti to tie and, for the winning run, Owen Balleau.

Dylan Phillips said, “I was really nervous because I knew, if we lose, I am done playing with my teammates, and I didn’t want to let them down.”

Scholz said that, in the sectionals, the team had lost a game to Twin Town, from Rensselaer County, 10 to 0, under the mercy rule — when a team is losing so badly that the game is called — and then had to play three more games, including overcoming Twin Town for the Sectional 2 South tournament title.

The game that sealed that tournament ended with a walk-off hit by Ryan Scholz that brought in Harry Mathurin.

The deciding at-bat was at the bottom of the sixth inning against Twin Town, with the score tied at 5 to 5, with two outs and two strikes, said Rob Scholz, who never mentioned to The Enterprise that it had been his son who made that hit.

Asked about it, Scholz said that Ryan Scholz “had a nice hit” and that Harry Mathurin “ran his heart out to get home from second base.”

Scholz said he was sure the parents were more nervous than the players were in the final moments of that game. All of the boys played their hearts out, Scholz said.

In the state tournament, Guilderland beat Vestal and then Penfield. Guilderland then lost to Great Kills and had a rematch against Penfield, and lost that. Great Kills and Penfield went on to play for the state championship, which Great Kills won.

Referring to the losses that kept them from prevailing in the state tourney, Scholz said, “It may take my son, Ry — a very competitive boy — a bit of time to get over this. But it will be a summer he’ll never forget.”

The team is already looking forward to next summer, he added.

“Maybe, just maybe,” Scholz said, “they might get the chance to go on again next summer as 11s.”