Washington claims District 12 crown
By: Justin Feil
FLORENCE The West Windsor 12-year-old all-star softball team had one goal when it took on Washington Township on Sunday.
Coming out of the losers’ bracket, it wanted to force a winner-take-all championship Monday in the double-elimination District 12 Little League Tournament.
A single bad inning defensively, a problem that has haunted them throughout the tournament, and a power shortage at the plate cost West Windsor its chance at a fourth straight district crown in a 4-3 loss Sunday.
"It was pretty close. We just didn’t get our sticks together like we usually get them together," said WW manager David Black. "It’s a tough loss. I’m proud of the girls. They did well. That’s just the way it goes sometimes. We’ll get them next year."
Both Washington and West Windsor finished second in their respective pools, but both reached the championship. After both won their openers, Washington sent West Windsor into the losers’ bracket with an 8-6 defeat on Friday. West Windsor then eliminated Florence with a 6-2 win on Saturday. It was the third meeting with Florence, and second win over Washington since they beat West Windsor in the first game of the district tournament.
"We won the grudge match," Black said. "Washington came out and beat us once and then they beat us the second time. I think both wins that they had could have went either way. Maybe it was a lack of experience on my part in coaching."
Black tried to line his team up for the if-necessary game Sunday. He started staff ace Jeanine Asay, then went to Hye-Jin Kim in the second inning, before coming back with Asay for the final three innings. Washington scored four times in the second inning, the final three runs coming after an error on what have been the third out.
"It’s just been one of our nightmares," Black said. "We always have that one inning. Maybe it’s inexperience on my part, not being able to keep them alive.
"Even with Jeanine pitching," he added, "we seem to have a bad inning. If you look back to it, we very seldom score just three runs. Our hitting was off. We were tight. Some of these girls have played travel ball together with (Washington). Maybe they were tight because of that."
A day after putting together eight hits in the win over Florence, West Windsor was held to four hits. Three of them came in the top of the third inning when they answered Florence’s four-run second inning to make it a game. All three runs came with two outs. Dana Kong singled, Katelyn Black was hit by a pitch and Asay singled in Kong for the first run. Kim followed with an RBI single and Asay scored on an error. West Windsor did not have another hit the rest of the way, which made the one bad defensive inning all the more costly.
"I was banking on the fact that we could hit the girl," Black said. "With that, I wanted to start Jeanine and pull her out to put Hye-Jin in. The reason was I was hoping to keep Jeanine for the next game.
"I have four pitchers. I was just trying to maybe conserve Jeanine for the next game. I was kind of looking ahead. I was looking at our hitters to be able to hit the ball. Obviously, we didn’t connect today. I had to put Jeanine back in to keep the game close. I’m not saying Hye-Jin is a bad pitcher. I felt like Jeanine could keep us close and our sticks could open up."
Asay allowed just one hit in her four innings of work. She struck out three.
"Jeanine pitched great," Black said. "She’s an awesome pitcher. I planned to keep her for the next game. I guess maybe I was looking ahead and I should have been playing this game."
West Windsor had chances to force the if-game but Washington made the plays Sunday. In the fourth and fifth innings, West Windsor wasted leadoff walks. The fifth looked like the best chance with the middle of the lineup coming to bat. After Black’s leadoff walk, though, Asay’s hard grounder up the middle was backhanded before Kim lined up to shortstop and the inning ending on a grounder.
But the sixth inning saw one final chance as Kristie O’Cone also led off with a walk. She stole second base and reached third on a one-out groundout. The game ended when Elizabeth Sugar ripped one back up the middle that pitcher Erin Wojton gloved for the final out.
"If she didn’t catch that, that could have been a base hit to tie it up," Black said. "My leadoff was coming up next. I had Dana coming up and I knew Dana was due. At any moment, we could have busted this game open. It just didn’t happen. Washington Township, they have an awesome team. I wish them the best."
West Windsor still exited with some handsome hardware. They received the second-place trophy from a district that could be argued is the toughest in the state.
"These girls are awesome," Black said. "This is a great experience for me. I enjoy coaching these girls. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. West Windsor has a good program. They have girls coming back to get that district back next year."