Millburn 8U Team Heads To Cal Ripken District 12 Playoffs

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Millburn's 8U team had an active week. They began the week beating South Orange Maplewood 16-0. Ryan Dooley and Jack Lawler combined to pitch a one-hitter.

They followed that game up with the most exciting game of the season against Chatham. The first inning began with both teams allowing a single, but no runs. Chatham’s Brooks Loftin started the 2nd inning smacking a single, stealing two bases, and scoring on Colby Stratemeier’s hit to left. With Chatham up 1-0, their pitchers were able to keep Millburn at bay and retained the 1-0 lead into the fifth inning. Chatham’s Will Ferchak lead-off the 5th with a walk, but then Millburn erased the baserunner with strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play by pitcher Oliver La Londe and catcher Koji Fujita. However, Chatham was able to generate 2 runs with 2 outs and took a 3-0 lead. In the bottom of the 5th, Gus Grove singled and eventually scored on a bases loaded walk by Hugo Gurijara. With the bases loaded and one out, Chatham was able to pitch its way out of the jam and retain a 3-1 lead. Millburn pitcher La Londe blanked Chatham in the top of the sixth (and final) inning with some great defense by Dooley at 3rd base. Going into the bottom of the sixth and down by 2, Millburn’s Logan Saperstein and Dooley began with back-to-back singles. With one out, Lawler knocked in Saperstein to narrow the Chatham lead to 3-2. Chatham then intentionally walked Grove to load the bases. The tension was high as Zach Goodman stepped to the plate. The lefty Goodman can hit to all fields and used this to his advantage as he lined the ball down the third base line to knock in two runs and complete the walk-off victory, 4-3.

As exciting as the Chatham victory was, Millburn 8U suffered a walk-off loss to Scotch Plains Fanwood in the bottom of the sixth in the following game. Millburn finished pool play at 3-1. In the fourth game of the week, Millburn visited Livingston and won 12-0 in a non-district game. The team is now 6-2 overall heading into the District 12 quarterfinals against Cranford.

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