The 0-3 start is long forgotten. A winning streak of 13 games and a pair of championships will do that.
The Marlboro Baseball Travel Club’s 13-year-old Mustangs baseball team recently won the Central Jersey Baseball League championship, defeating the South Brunswick Vikings, 9-8, in the final to run their winning streak to 13 games.
Marlboro won the CJBL final in dramatic fashion, rallying from five runs down, 8-3, in the bottom of the seventh to tie the game and then, winning it in the bottom of the eighth.
An RBI bases-loaded walk to Dan Cammarata in the last of the seventh began the Mustangs’ unlikely comeback. Evan Hilla followed with a two RBI double. Eric Katz smacked an RBI double that drew Marlboro within one run, and Sean Eiges knotted it up at 8-8 with his run-scoring single that sent the game into extra innings.
Hilla pitched a scoreless top of the eighth for Marlboro to keep the game tied, and it was Cammarata again with a bases-loaded walk that won it.
Michael Kapnick got it going for Marlboro, drawing a base-on-balls. Ross Silver then singled and Jason Kaplan also drew a walk, loading the bases. Kapnick then walked home with the winning run when Cammarata drew his free pass.
Cammarata, Hilla, Katz and Eiges were Marlboro’s top hitters during the CJBL playoffs. Tom Giunta, Eiges and Patrick McLaughlin delivered key home runs and Kapnick clutch RBI.
Defensively, Matt Lubin, Michael Kang and Kaplan led a solid team effort.
Giunta, Katz, Eiges, Hills and Kang made up a very dependable pitching rotation.
M
arlboro started the season 0-3,
thanks to a pitching shortage due to some of its starters playing middle school ball. Once the team got its pitching staff intact, there was no looking back.
In addition to winning the CJBL title, the boys won the Marlboro Memorial Day Weekend Tournament.
Marlboro spent last weekend in Rehobeth Beach, Del., in a tournament and will play later this month in the Monroe Tournament.
Jeff Hilla, Rich Kaplan, Steve Silver and Anthony Cammarata are Marlboro’s coaches.

