The 8U North Brunswick Raiders captured the North Edison Memorial Day Tournament. That in itself is special. But making it more memorable for the Raiders, it was their first championship.
The Raiders won the championship, heldMay 27-30 at the North Edison Baseball and Softball Complex, by defeating a Lincroft Knights team that handed them a loss during the preliminary round.
Lincroft upended the Raiders in a high-scoring game, 12-11, winning the game in the last inning.
Little did the teams know that they would meet again in the playoffs with the tournament championship on the line.
In the rematch, Raider pitching dominated as they prevailed, 6-2, behind Dylan Glassman, who tossed a complete game. He struck out 10 in six innings and allowed just six hits and walked three.
Offensively, the Raiders got contributions from a number of players. Caleb Rodriguez had two hits, two runs scored, two RBIs and scored what proved to be the game-winning run. In addition, Tyler Sommer had two hits, one run scored and batted in Rodriguez with the winning run. Lincroft’s Thomas Volpicella and Matthew Miele had two each and with a run scored and a run batted in.
The North Edison tournament for travel teams was held in the following divisions: 8U, 9U, 10U, 11U and 12U. More than 80 games were played over the Memorial Day weekend. The 8U division had teams from North Edison as well as the North Brunswick and Lincroft squads.
The 8U North Brunswick Raiders are: Matthew Cooper, Tim DeAndrea, Dylan Gessner, Dylan Glassman, Drew Kilheeney, Zach Neilson, Caleb Rodriguez, Derek Rossman, Tyler Sommer, Justin Soto, and Michael Wojciechowski. The coaching staff for the Raiders were: Ed Kilheeney, Hector Rodriguez, and Steve Sommer.
The Lincroft team consisted of: Thomas Brown, Ryan Buckman, Demitri Forand, Michael Goddard, Andrew Gonzalez, Charlie Honan, Chris Marzulla, Matthew Miele, Thomas Schork, Jared Terefenko, Gregory Trezza and Thomas Volpicella. Coaching staff for the Knights were: Charlie Terefenko, Frank Volpicella, John Honan and Craig Forand.