Staff photo / Neel Madhavan Canfield’s Luke Broderick pitches during Tuesday’s Little League 11U baseball District 2 championship game at Fields of Dreams in Boardman.

BOARDMAN — Despite a moderately slow start, Canfield’s bats struck early and often on Tuesday.

Success at the plate was contagious as Canfield racked up 11 hits en route to a 15-0 victory over Boardman in three innings to claim the Little League 11U District 2 baseball championship at Field of Dreams in Boardman.

“This is everything — these guys worked so hard to get to this point,” Canfield manager Mark Kellerman said. “For them to finish the game and finish it that way, it means a lot for them.”

After Boardman went down in order at the top of the first inning, Canfield looked to be off to a similar start after a pair of strikeouts by Boardman starting pitcher Nazib Banna to begin the bottom of the frame.

But Luke Broderick got Canfield started with a base hit, and things started to snowball from there. Carson Mashar then followed with a single of his own, and Jason Vodhanel scored Broderick with a double for Canfield’s first run of the evening.

Lincoln Toth then added two more RBIs for Canfield after reaching on an error due to a dropped fly ball in the infield.

Boardman’s first runner on base came in the top of the second inning when Broderick, Canfield’s starting pitcher, walked Rocco Rosati.

However, Canfield erased Boardman’s opportunity to get on the board with a 1-4-3 double play to close out the top of the inning.

Canfield did it again in the top of the third inning with another double play, catching a pair of Boardman runners astray at second and third base after a lead-off single by Nick Nemtz.

“I continue to tell them they have a job to do, whether it’s make a play or follow up and back up somebody,” Kellerman said. “You have a job to do, and it just led to something — we were able to get two double plays two consecutive innings, and that was huge. It got us out of a jam both times and really kept our momentum going.”

Back at the plate, Canfield picked up where it left off in the bottom of the second inning. A pair of walks and a hit by Camden Brown led to a two-run single by Colin Petrushka.

Back at the top of the order, Mikey Kellerman then added two runs after reaching on a Boardman throwing error from the shortstop to first base. Broderick added one more run to end the inning with an 8-0 Canfield lead.

Canfield finished things out by scoring seven runs in the bottom of the third.

Vodhanel led things off with a double and scored on a wild pitch two at-bats later. Sammy Ausmann added a run on a triple, followed by RBIs from Maddox Richards and Petrushka.

Broderick then triggered the 15-run mercy rule with two RBIs of his own to end the game.

“We wanted to be aggressive, and then they started to kind of struggle to find the plate a little bit,” Kellerman said. “So we told them to be patient, and we got ahead in the count. When they threw a strike, we just attacked it.”

Broderick and Petrushka led Canfield with a pair of hits and three RBIs apiece, while Broderick also picked up the shutout win on the mound with one strikeout and one walk.