Millburn 11-12 Baseball Team Starts 3-1

The Millburn 11-12s league team opened the Cerbo Summer League season last week.  Millburn finished the first week of play 3-1.

The team dropped the home opener at Gero Park 15-1 on June 22 to the Rockland Cobras.  The game, which was suspended due to rain after three innings with Millburn trailing 7-1, was completed on Saturday at Rockland.

After losing the first game, Millburn won the next three games.  Millburn won the next home game on June 23 21-3 against the Montclair Snipers.  The offensive stars of the game were Jake Sauberman, Ethan Podell and Alex Hou.

Sauberman had three singles to drive in three runs, Podell had two singles to drive in four runs and Hou had a double and single to drive in 3 runs. Sauberman, Sam Nacht and Zach Gotsch scattered 8 hits, struck out 8 batters and gave up only 3 runs in six innings of work.

Millburn won the first road game on June 24 6-0 against Englewood Express. Millburn scored a run in each of the first two innings to take a 2-0 lead.  Daniel Stern led off the third inning with a single and advanced to second when Anthony Amorosa walked.  The runners advanced to second and third on a wild pitch. Stern came home on a RBI groundout.  Ethan Podell singled in Amorosa and  RJ Serruto completed the four-run inning with a two run home run to left center field.

Max Lechtman made several defensive plays in the sixth inning to keep the Englewood team from scoring.  Sam Nacht pitched four innings of shutout ball without giving up a hit and Zach Gotsch pitched the final 3 shutout innings.

Millburn avenged the opening game loss to the Rockland Cobras with a thrilling come from behind 11-8 victory on June 26.  Millburn jumped to a 5-0 lead in the first inning but Rockland scored four runs in the bottom of the inning and took a 8-5 lead with four more runs in the second inning.

Millburn tied the game 8-8 in the third inning with the help of an RBI double by RJ Serruto and RBI singles by Sam Nacht and Brandon Rosenberg.  Millburn took the lead 9-8 in the sixth inning on a leadoff double by Zach Gotsch who stole third base and scored on a wild pitch.

In the seventh inning, Millburn added a couple of insurance runs.  Will Elder singled, stole second and came home on a double by Jake Sauberman.  After advancing to third on a wild pitch, Sauberman came home on Ethan Podell's sacrifice fly to right.  Sauberman also pitched two shutout innings to preserve the win.

Liam Ferrer, who is also a member of the team, is injured and expects to rejoin the team in the middle of July.