League-leading King peewees square off In exciting game

July 2, 2014 · 0 Comments

By Simon Lloyd

It has been an interesting season so far thanks to the KTBA’s new interlock with the Aurora Baseball Association. Both King peewee teams have managed to keep their Aurora opponents at bay but it all came to a head last week – and came home – when the two top peewee division teams, both from King Township, squared off.

Senior Rookie

Team Prism Painting played their fifth game of the season at Nobleton East Diamond park on June 25 against Aurora team 2. The game stayed close in the first two innings with Prism Painting trailing. Their playing was reminiscent of the “bad news bears” until their bats exploded in the third inning, running the whole line up at bat. Prism Painting won the game 10-6.
Francesco Greco #31 is in his very first year of baseball ever this season. Coach Z asked him to play catcher for the first game out. Francesco must have got hit by every pitch back there but kept taking it on the chin for the team. The next day he would certainly have a few bruises, but he stuck it out! In the June 25 game he got 3 hits and 1 RBI and made great in field plays to help the Prism Painting team to victory. What a team player! Francesco is our player of the game.

Peewee

June 23 – the peewee King Cobras sponsored by International Sports took on Aurora’s Invis Mortgage, defending their undefeated title. They started off the game with a strong defense, with one of the outs made by Aidan Naworynski, who threw home. The bats were hot, as Cameron Kokelj knocked one out over second, touching green, followed by Aaron Fraser driving another one out to right field. By the end of the first inning the Cobras had brought home 5 runs.
In the second inning, Aaron Fraser and Owen Witten kept the runner at third as they chased him back from home. Matthew Murphy made a great out at second thanks to a quick heads-up play from pitcher Cameron Kokelj who saw the opponent off base. Kokelj tagged another runner out on his way to first. Aurora only scored two runs that inning. Offensively, Matthew Murphy and Justin Topp both stole home, and by the end of the second inning the cobras were leading 7-4.
In the third inning, Jonathan Brunato threw a great mix of pitches, not allowing many runners on base. Five more runs were scored by the Cobras with honorable mention to awesome hits made by Aaron, Tanner and Owen.
In the fourth inning, pitcher Owen struck out 3 players. Murphy hit a single and brought in two more runs for the Cobras. Aurora had a hard time shutting down the Cobras as Justin Topp, Matthew Murphy, Cameron Kokelj, Johnathon Brunato, Aaron Fraser, Shawn Kay, and Owen Witten all connected well with the ball. It was hit after hit.
Nicholas Petrungaro is commended for his amazing hit that was almost a home run. Unfortunately, Aurora beat him to the plate. In the end the Cobras remained undefeated with a score of 22-5.
Player of the game goes to Matthew Murphy who played an excellent game both offensively and defensively.
Meanwhile, the Wyndsong peewee team selected Jesse Becker as player of the game for her defensive instincts behind the plate in their June 23 game against Aurora’s Breton White Oak team at Optimist Park. Jonah Orlandi and Logan Hall also made defensive contributions, tagging runners and snagging line drives. The game ended in a 9-9 tie.
June 25 – The two King teams faced off in a very exciting game. These two teams sit atop the standings midway through the season, so everyone knew this would be a close match.
Matthew Murphy led off the game with a nice hit that eventually led him home for the only run scored in the first inning. Justin Topp pitched two strike-outs and made a play to first to get the third batter out.
In the second inning there were great hits by Ben Harbridge, Nicholas Petrungaro, Tanner Charlton and Aaron Fraser. Petrungaro hit was a triple that was hit in to deep right field. International Sports was now ahead 5-0.
The Wyndsong team managed to get a run in the second inning. Topp pitched another strong inning. In the third inning Shawn Kay and Ethan Lane had strong base running stealing both second and third base. The Wyndsong team managed to get five runs in the third inning due to their strong batting. In the fourth inning Tanner Charlton was the only player who was able to cross the plate with hits from Aaron Fraser and Aidan Naworynski. Pitcher Owen Witten made a great play to get the first out of the fourth inning and then struck the next two batters out. The game carried on with a one-point difference with International Sports leading by one run going into the sixth inning. Nicholas Petrungaro hit a lovely triple to right field. Unfortunately the International Sports team was not able to get any runs. They just needed to hold off the Wyndsong team from scoring any runs.
Jonathan Brunato struck out two batters with his excellent pitching, but with bases loaded and the batter was at full count he struck the ball deep into right field to bring in two runners.
Player of the game goes to Nicholas Petrungaro for his outstanding hits at bat.
From the Wyndsong team perspective, Jackson Cunneyworth made a nice line drive snag at short to end the first inning, with the team allowing just one run to cross the plate. Wyndsong Farms eventually put one on the board with Cunneyworth’s impressive solo home run in the second, but found themselves down by 4 heading into the third. In addition to some timely errors by their opponent, Max Orlandi, Devin Wells, Ben Brown and Greg Long also stepped up to the plate and made contact, allowing runs to score.
Ben Brown took to the mound in the fourth inning with the game tied at 6. After settling in, he struck out three batters in a row, earning just one run. Marshall Moore faced the top of the Sports International order to start the fifth. With 2 strikeouts and some help from Erin Becker on third base for the final out, the Wyndsong peewees held their opponent to a slim one run lead in the fifth.
Marshall took to the mound once again in the sixth. After striking out 2 of the first 3 batters he faced, he also contributed to the final out with a toss to Brown at first to get the runner. The bottom of the 6th gave Wyndsong something to build on with a lead off single by Orlandi, and a walk by Wells to get the winning run on board. With 2 outs, Moore showed patience at the plate and took the walk. Cunneyworth stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded. After fouling off the first 2 pitches he saw, Cunneyworth saw one he liked and singled to right field allowing two runners to cross the plate giving the Wyndsong Cobras an exciting walk-off win.
The final score was 8-7.