Rain puts damper on playoff bid
By: Justin Feil
Appropriately, the Montgomery American Legion baseball team’s season ended with a rainout last Tuesday.
The season was sort of a wash after Montgomery started out with high hopes, was competitive in nearly every game, but rain and a shortened schedule prevented the team from its shot at the playoffs.
"There’s just kind of general disappointment that we didn’t get to play more games," said manager Pete Cahill after his team finished 8-9. "Our league sends two teams to the Legion state tournament and one team to the Connie Mack tournament. We always have to have our schedule done by Connie Mack, and we ran short on time, especially when you get some rain. It’s just unfortunate scheduling."
Montgomery finished tied for third in the East Division of the Pyramid Legion Baseball League. The top two teams from each Pyramid division make the playoffs.
"Everyone plays the same teams," Cahill said. "We just ended up in the stronger division. We would have made the playoffs if we were in the other division."
Montgomery only completed 17 of the scheduled 22 games, and several of the five rainouts were winnable games. Hillsborough and Bridgewater advanced to the playoffs while North Plainfield tied Montgomery for third place.
"Bridgewater, we lost to them all three times, twice by a run and once in extra innings," Cahill noted. "We played a lot of close games. We lost five one-run games total, plus a game we lost in extra innings. We lost six games out of nine by either a run or in extra innings. It’s not like we were getting killed."
Montgomery has plenty of promise for the future. They’ll lose college-bound Montgomery High graduates Brian Cahill, Ryan King and Mike Mohns, as well as two players from Rutgers Prep.
"We don’t have any college kids on the team, so we’re always kind of young," Pete Cahill said. "But we should have a good team next year."
One that hopefully finds a way to win the close ones and gets a fair shot at the playoffs with a full schedule of games.