Still in hunt for Southern NJ title
By: Bob Nuse
MILLVILLE While West Windsor-Plainsboro hasn’t been hitting on all cylinders through the first two games of the Southern New Jersey Babe Ruth 13-year-old tournament, it has done enough to stay alive through the opening weekend.
After getting just three hits in its opening game of the tournament on Friday night, WW-P managed just three again on Saturday. But this time, three hits were enough to lift WW-P to a 4-3 win over Millville and advance to the second round of the losers’ bracket.
With Saturday’s win, WW-P advanced to face either Medford or Pennsville 7 p.m. tonight in Millville. Those two teams were scheduled to play Monday, with WW-P facing the loser.
"Our bats haven’t been there yet but today they woke up a little bit," said WW-P center fielder Will Dzugan, who had one of the three hits and scored a run. "We haven’t been scoring like we want to, but our pitching and defense have kept us in the game. I think we’ve been pretty happy with our fielding and pitching, but we can still hit the ball better."
WW-P broke a scoreless tie in the bottom of the third when Dzugan singled, went to second on a sacrifice by Eric Rosenbaum and scored on a base hit by Scott Kelly. It then added two more runs in the fourth with just one hit. With one out, Eric Wisotsky walked and Brianna Taft followed with a single. Quinn Male knocked in one run with a ground out, and after a walk and hit batter, Frankie Rauh walked with the bases loaded for another run.
WW-P added its final run in the fourth thanks to three Millville errors. Chris Avino reached on an error, as did Matt Hui. Avino then scored on an error on an attempted pick-off throw.
That lead held up until the seventh, when Millville rallied to make it interesting. Wisotsky, who had pitched three-hit shutout ball into the seventh, allowed a double and walk to start the inning. Avino then came on and hit a batter before an error led to Millville’s first run. After a pick-off for the first out, a single and a walk got Millville within one run before Kelly came on to record the final two outs for the save.
"I started to get a little tired and the ball was getting up in the zone at the end," said Wisotsky, who won for the third time in this post-season. "I was trying to mix up the fastball and the changeup and that seemed to be working.
"We haven’t hit as well in this tournament as we did in the last one and that makes it a little tougher on the pitchers. But we have a lot of confidence in all the pitchers on this team."
Even after Avino was lifted in the seventh, he made the key defensive play of the game at shortstop, throwing out a runner at the plate for the second out of the inning.
"Chris made a great play," said Wisotsky, who moved behind the plate after he was finished on the mound. "I just tried to block the plate as best I could and make a tag. I know any pitcher we have can get the job done. I had confidence in the guys that came in after me that they would get through the inning."
WW-P had fallen into the losers’ bracket with a 5-0 loss to Egg Harbor on Friday night. The game was scoreless until the bottom of the sixth, when Egg Harbor scored five runs on six hits and one WW-P error.
Matt Hui was working on a one-hitter through the first five innings. Egg Harbor then opened the sixth with three straight hits to plate the first two runs. After an error, a triple accounted for two more runs with another hit making it 5-0. WW-P had just three hits, with Kelly getting two of the hits and Avino adding the other.
"It’s tough, but we’ve said we just have to take it one game at a time and see what happens," Dzugan said. "Hopefully we can keep winning."
"Our pitching has been terrific and our fielding has been good," WW-P manager Dave Male added. "We’re just missing that other element right now. We just have to get our bats going."