Loss in states caps successful season
By: Bob Nuse
WEST DEPTFORD In time, the memory of one bad inning will fade away and the West Windsor-Plainsboro American Legion baseball team will remember fondly its just completed incredible season.
WW-P came within a few innings of getting a chance to play for a berth in the state tournament’s Final 8. Leading 6-1 heading into the bottom of the seventh, WW-P had an inning to forget as Toms River South scored 15 runs to post a 16-6 win.
"In a week or so they’ll be able to reflect back on a tremendous year," said WW-P manager Don Hutchinson, whose team finished the season 23-8. "Right now they’re hurting and rightfully so. When that settles down they can look back at the whole picture. They believed they could continue to go. They were every bit ready to come back and win a second game today."
After losing on Sunday, WW-P needed to win three straight games to reach the Final 8. The first of those wins came Monday over South Amboy. Then on Tuesday, WW-P built a 6-1 lead as Steve Odachowski sailed through the first six innings on the mound, allowing just one run on four hits.
But in the seventh, four pitchers combined to allow six hits and walk seven, while three errors contributed to a 15-run inning that ended the game.
"It’s tough to go out with a loss like that," Hutchinson said. "If we had gone out with a hard-fought loss in a normal baseball game it would have been a little easier to handle. Steve looked like he had it in control of the game. It was a strange game."
Both teams had their problems with the small strike zone, but Hutchinson wasn’t about to use that as an excuse for the loss. His team played well for the first six innings to build its lead, but the seventh was an inning to forget.
"You never want to see it end like that," Hutchinson said. "Not the way we played all year. To have an ending like that is not a good thing. But it happens. It was a combination of a lot of things. We were able to compensate for the strike zone all day. Steve was dealing with it. But when it did start to hurt us, I think we let it affect us. A couple hits, a couple errors and when you put it all together, it was one heck of an inning."
WW-P scored four times in the top of the first to open up an early lead. Taylor Titsch drove in a run with a sacrifice fly, Mitch Leibowitz and Alex Campbell each walked with the Bases loaded to force in runs, and the final run of the inning scored when Ryan Phelan reached on an error.
Toms River South cut the lead to 4-1 in the second, but WW-P added a run in the fifth on a ground out by Leibowitz, then added another in the sixth when Charlie Carluccio singled in a run.
In the seventh, three errors and seven walks made the difference for the TRS offense. Several close pitches went against WW-P, as they had gone against TRS earlier in the game.
"It was fair and consistent the entire game for both pitchers," Hutchinson said. "It affected them and we scored some runs early in the game. It got to the point where we couldn’t throw it over the fat part of the plate and they hit it."
The loss ends quite a season for WW-P, which went 17-5 in the regular season to finish second in the Mercer County American Legion League. The team then won four one-run games in the league playoffs to secure a berth in the state tournament.
"The kids had a great year," Hutchinson said. "One bad inning isn’t going to take that away from them."

