Millburn 8U Rally For Another Come-From-Behind Win

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The Millburn 8U travel team continued their summer play this week with a game against Summit and once again, the comeback kids saved their best for last. As has been the case this year, Millburn spotted Summit a 5-0 lead in the top of the first, but scored two of their own in the bottom of the first. Summit extended the lead with two more runs in the second, but that is when Millburn began to get serious. Down 7-2 in the bottom of the 2nd, Millburn started the long march back. Oliver LaLonde singled, advanced to third on a single by Koji Fujita, and then was knocked in on another single by Gus Grove. Down 7-3 heading into the third, the Millburn 8U pitchers took control. Noah Shidlovsky erased Summit with three quick outs in the third, but Millburn was unable to capitalize in their half of the inning. Then Zach Goodman similarly blanked Summit with three more quick outs in the fourth, but Millburn was able to score one. 7-4. LJ Tuso then blanked Millburn in the fifth, but Millburn also failed to score. Heading into the sixth and final inning, Millburn needed three to tie and four to win. Gavin Talles set down the Summit batters 1-2-3 and Millburn came to bat down 7-4. Jack Lawler started it off with a walk. Goodman and Nicholas Treue added singles. Ryan Dooley came up with the bases loaded and added another single. 7-5. Logan Saperstein and LaLonde also reached base adding two more runs. It was 7-7 as Gus Grove stepped to the plate. Grove, a power hitter, drove one to first enabling Dooley to score for the 8-7 walk-off victory.

So far this year, Millburn 8U is playing very well with a 19-6 record, but the amazing part is that 6 of these 19 wins have been comebacks by the comeback kids.

Over the weekend, Millburn began the week-long Clark Tournament on Saturday morning with a 13-9 victory against Bayonne. Next up in the tournament was Cranford and some defensive highlights by Noah Shidlovsky (pictured). The Clark field is unique like Fenway Park in that it has a very shallow outfield wall, which makes things exciting. Cranford started off the first by loading the bases and then sent a deep fly to left. On the run, Shidlovsky kept Cranford scoreless with a clutch catch. Similarly, with two men on and two outs in the third inning, but Shidlovsky in right, Cranford had another big hit and Shidlovsky had a clutch catch up against the fence to keep the runs to a minimum. On the offensive side, this game was highlighted by the power-hitting Gus Grove, who launched the first home run of Millburn's season into Clark's duck pond. Everyone was ecstatic, except the ducks. Millburn won 13-2.

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