Marlboro hosting Junior League Eastern Regional

By tim morris

Marlboro Little League will be in the eye of the Little League world starting Saturday when it hosts the 2000 Eastern Junior Regional Little League Championships. This is the second straight year that Marlboro has hosted the region tournament.

Last year was the first time Marlboro had hosted a national tournament and it proved to be nothing but positive for the league and community, according to Cliff Radisch, president of the Marlboro Little League.

"It was absolutely exciting," he pointed out. "We had teams from seven states come to our facility. It was a great experience to share the facilities with them. There was excellent baseball."

A lot of behind the scenes work goes into planning and then executing a major tournament. The Marlboro Little League has to take care of the housing accommodations and meals for all the teams. Then there is the upkeep of the fields and traffic control. The easiest part is the games themselves.

"The most difficult part is coordinating all the different aspects of the tournament and putting everything together before the teams get to the field to play," said Radisch. "The community is behind this 100 percent.

"The Marlboro Police Department led by Chief Robert Holmes and Captain Bruce Hall have been exceedingly co-operative in preparing us for this tournament," he added. "So has Mayor (Matthew) Scannapieco and the [Township] Council."

In addition to the six members of the tournament committee, there are 35 volunteers working behind the scenes to make it work.

The Eastern Region represents 11 states: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massa-chusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland.

The tournament will begin on Saturday with four games starting at 11 a.m. There will be opening ceremonies at the Little League Complex, Tennent Road, starting at 9 a.m. On Sunday, four more games will be played starting at 11 a.m. That will narrow the eight-team field down to four teams. There will be two games on Monday starting at 5 p.m. and two more on Tuesday with the double-dipper beginning at 5 p.m. On Aug. 9, the final of the loser’s bracket will be played at 7 p.m. with the winner going on to play for the championship on Aug. 10 at 5 p.m. Should a second game be necessary in the double-elimination tournament, it will be played at 8 that night.

Last year, it was the New England representatives, the defending champion Ed Walsh All-Stars from Connecticut, who won the Eastern Regional. They marched through the tournament undefeated beating the New Jersey champions from the South Vineland Little League, 10-3 in the final.

As the host site, Marlboro’s Junior League all-stars will be participating in the tournament. Radisch noted that having a team in the tournament helped bring the Marlboro community more together behind the team and even more supportive of the tournament. Marlboro will begin play on Saturday at 11 a.m. against the Maryland state champions.

This year’s Marlboro squad is coached by Graig Knox. The team members are: Howard Dobshinsky, Jack Donatelli, Kyle Dunleavy, Jeff Frommer, Ryan Glassberg, Chris Hecht, Craig Knox, Danny Landau, Shawn Malysz, Matt Minochio and Chris Mazza. Dan Minochio is the coach.