By: Sean Moylan
The Millstone-Roosevelt 10-year-old Little League All-Star softball squad was so good, it took a 12-11, seventh-inning win by Florence in the losers’ bracket final on Sunday at host Washington Township to knock it out of the Final Four of the District 12 Tournament.
"It was a tough one. We got in an early hole, 8-1, but our kids fought back," said Millstone-Roosevelt manager Chris Romano.
In the top of the fifth, Millstone-Roosevelt erupted for six runs to grab a temporary 9-8 lead. Kirsten Romano and Jessie Gazzani each had two-run hits in the inning.
Samantha Geis, Jessie Hickey and Arianna Barnaba each knocked in a run for Millstone-Roosevelt as well. Geis tossed the first six frames, but Romano had to pitch Barnaba after the game went to extra innings with the score deadlocked at 11-11.
"I thought she’d (Barnaba) give us the best chance. And she was throwing the ball over the plate," noted Romano.
Barnaba pitched well, but Torri Fantozzi hit a double to knock in the winning run for Florence.
Millstone-Roosevelt had qualified for that contest by beating East Windsor, 9-6, on Saturday. Romano started the game and got the win, but catcher Chelsea Turner should have been awarded some kind of save for her extraordinary all-around effort in the contest.
"She’s (Romano) only been pitching since this spring so she pitched very well. Chelsea Turner (2-for-3 with double and a RBI in the game) was talking to her the whole game. My catcher did a nice job of calming her down," said Romano, whose daughter pitched fantastic after falling behind 4-0 after one.
Romano allowed just two hits, but East Windsor scored some runs because she did walk 13, which turned out to be a lucky number in this one. She also knocked in two runs.
As a team, Millstone-Roosevelt battled back and got huge RBI hits from shortstop Erica Nugent and Barnaba, who played first. Geis, who played second, doubled while Sabrina Campelo and Dominique Galipo each knocked in runs for the winners.
In last Friday’s Final Four opener, Washington, the host team, defeated Millstone-Roosevelt, 12-2. Geis took a hard-luck loss.
"Geis pitched a really good game. There were a couple of innings where we couldn’t field for her and we basically fell apart," added Romano. "But this year we went one step further than last year. This year we won a Final Four game. Last year we were two and out."
On July 17th, Millstone-Roosevelt beat Bordentown, 20-6, to complete pool play with a 3-1 record. Romano whiffed seven batters to earn the win. Barnaba exploded for three hits, including a triple, and drove in five runs while scoring four times. Nugent (3-for-3, four runs, three RBI) and Kimberly Armstrong (3-for-3, three RBI) were both great at the plate as well. Millstone-Roosevelt has a chance to be good next year too.
"Our core group is going to move up to the 11’s and 12’s next year," said Romano, who is looking forward to being one of the assistant coaches for that club.
Romano and Stephen Geis put together a club which managed to get pretty far with just a handful of pitchers. With all the new pitching rules the last couple of years, that’s pretty impressive. Millstone-Roosevelt was also one of the best hitting clubs throughout the entire tourney.
Baseball 12’s
Although HTRBA beat the Millstone-Roosevelt 12-year-old Little League All-Star baseball Team, 10-9, to eliminate it from the Final Nine, many people believed that Millstone-Roosevelt had the best hitting team in all of District 12. And so far in the Allentown Baseball Tournament, the Millstone-Roosevelt players have crushed the ball while winning four straight and turning the Byron Johnson Fields into their own personal home run launching pads.
Millstone-Roosevelt, however, started the tourney with a modest 4-3 win over Lawrence on July 16.
"Mike Calabrese won that game. He only threw 58 pitches," said Millstone-Roosevelt manager Jeff Clark.
Then last Tuesday (July 17) Millstone-Roosevelt clobbered Cranbury-Plainsboro, 14-2. Pat Clark pitched a terrific game to come way with the victory. Meanwhile everyone on the team hit.
But that contest was just a warm-up for Friday’s 16-3 victory over Allentown. Allentown had slipped by Millstone-Roosevelt in a 9-8 slugfest when the two teams played each other in the last game District 12 pool play. Milstone-Roosevelt came out flat and had a bad first inning in that one. But last Friday, Millstone-Roosevelt did not wait long to start pounding the ball.
"This time around we scored four runs in the first and our pitcher (Frank O’Brien) did a real good job and we played small ball," said Jake Swerdel, who played a little long ball and hit a homer early in the game. A couple of frames later Pat Clark, Mike Calabrese and Nick Casiola hit back-to-back-to-back homers. In the District 12 tourney, the team had hit four in a row versus 6-11.
Clark is so strong he hit his homer off the wrong part of the bat, but it still cleared the right field fence by over 10 feet.
"I don’t usually hit them like that," said Clark. After Clark’s and Calabrese’s dingers, Casiola predicted his own blast.
"He (Casiola) said he was going to hit a home run and he did," said Millstone-Roosevelt’s Brandon Ruetsch.
With a big lead, J. Clark took out O’Brien at 20 pitches to keep him eligible for the next game. Zack Rosenthal pitched well in relief to post the win. Millstone-Roosevelt beat a good Allentown club by 13 runs and didn’t have to use any of its big three pitchers (Clark, Calabrese and Ruetsch). The first time around playing Allentown, Millstone-Roosevelt hit the outfield fence with several of its shots and consequently it was held to lot of long singles. But on Friday, the team made sure several of its blasts cleared the fence and that was the difference.
Then on Saturday, Millstone-Roosevelt thumped Nottingham "B", 12-1.
"My son Pat hit a walk-off homer in the fifth," said Clark.
Calabrese started and picked up the win, but Clark (3-for-4) also got in some work on the hill. Swerdel and Ruetsch were both 2-for-4. Meanwhile Nick Pallidino and Rosenthal each had key hits.
"Tom Wlazlowski played third and made some unbelievable plays," said Clark, who also got a strong defensive game from shortstop Connor Monroe.
Millstone-Roosevelt was scheduled to have played the winner of Tuesday’s Cranbury-Plainsboro/ Nottingham "A" game yesterday (Wednesday).

