'Camo All Stars' Win Boys Coach Pitch T-Ball Tournament 11-7

The following information was submitted by Coach Mike Ellis.

The Camo All Stars, a team of 5- and 6-year-old T-ball players with the Northville Baseball Softball Association's Boys Coach Pitch division, beat the Sluggers 11-7, winning a tournament that took place July 16-18 at the , and .

The tournament was run by Chris Max and was a collection of eight Northville All Star teams comprised of 5- and 6-year-old T-Ball players and the young 7-year-olds in the league. 

By winning this tournament, the Camos advance to play the older BCP All Stars in their tournament July 29-31. 

The tournament was set up so that all eight teams played at least three games, plus a semi-final game and the championship game. The Camos finished 5-0.

The Camos struck first in the championship game against the Sluggers with two runs in the top of the first inning led by the hitting of Ryan Hammett, Jack Ellis and Nicholas Licari. 

The Sluggers fought back with key hits by Zach Helner, Wes Broda and Michael Sanders and by the bottom of the second inning had grabbed the lead by a score of 3-2.   

Both teams continued solid defense and the score remained unchanged after the third inning. The Sluggers continued to play shutdown defense and continued to keep the Camos off the scoreboard in the top of the fourth.  Then in the bottom of the fourth inning, the Sluggers extended their lead to 6-2 behind the solid hitting of Grant Lenton and Cameron Mailley. 

With only two innings remaining, the Camos had to dig deep in order to come back. 

Led by the hitting of Grant Males, Alex Cardenas and Jack Piasentin the Camos did just that and hit a couple of doubles that seemed to break the game open with a new score of 7-6 in favor of the Camos. Had momentum swung? 

In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Sluggers were able to get one more off of the Camos with the run scored by Zach Jurcisin, but the damage was limited by a key diving play by Luke Brodde that stopped a line shot from going into Center Field. 

The key force-out at second base limited the Sluggers to only the one run but did leave the game tied 7-7 heading into the last inning.  

The Sluggers then preceded to get two quick outs on the Camos and had the Camos on the brink of scoring zero runs in the last inning. But with Licari at the plate with two strikes, he delivered the single that kept the Camos alive. 

This was then followed by more hitting by Brodde, Males, Cardenas & Piasentin. 

When it was all said and done, the Camos had taken the lead 11-7 heading into the bottom half of the last inning.  Would the lead hold or not?  

It did and the game ended with a hit from Carter Jurcisin to the pitcher Ryan Hammett and Hammett made the solid throw to Cardenas at First Base to end the game 11-7.