Millburn 8U Game Comes Down To Last At-Bat

This week, Millburn's 8 & under travel team ventured south to play in the Make-a-Wish Foundation's annual tournament in Monroe, New Jersey. This year, the teams were playing for Nico, 6, who suffers from Evans Syndrome, but wished to go to the Nickelodeon Resort.

The tournament got off to a rough start on Saturday for Millburn with two losses to the strong Matawan and Monroe teams. The youngsters were relegated to the #7 seed in the playoffs scheduled for the following day. Unfortunately, Sunday's temperature got up to nearly 100 degrees, but that was not going to stop the sluggers. Matawan had earned the #2 seed on Saturday and entered the game confidently, having beaten Millburn 12-2 the day before. As a result, Matawan elected to hold back their two aces ("Thunder" Funk, #99, a righty & "Lightning" Shea, #54, a lefty) for a hopeful semi-final game to be played later on Sunday. Millburn, however, opened with one of their aces, Aiden Treue, as pitcher. As seems to be the case this year, Millburn was charitable with some errors and gave Matawan a 3-0 head start in the first inning. Treue righted the ship in the second. After plunking the first Matawan Husky of the inning, Millburn mowed down the next three batters with a strike out and a double play by John Lischer at short. Starting the third, Millburn manufactured a run with a single by Jonah Callahan, who then scored after 2 walks and a sacrifice. Matawan struck back forcefully in their side of the third with five runs to take an 8-1 lead.

Given the heat, the game was limited to 90 minutes, so Millburn needed to score and score quickly. In the top of the fourth, Millburn got a break with an error by the pitcher to get Mac Ucko to first. Aiden Treue then laid down a bunt to move the runner over, but the bunt was so well placed that it resulted in a single. Alex Grapkowski followed with a double to center allowing Ucko to score. Adam Chung was then plunked by the frustrated Matawan pitcher loading the bases. John Lischer followed by ripping the ball down the third base line scoring another. Next up was Dylan Petersen, who has embodied this spunky team. Just 10 days ago, Petersen had his nose broken by a ball in the outfield. However, his main worry was how many games he would miss. Luckily, after a week's rest, he was back in the lineup and used the opportunity to drive a single to center resulting in 2 more RBIs. By the end of the inning, Millburn had drawn closer, but still down 8-6. By now Matawan was thoroughly rattled. Millburn used righty Ashankit Khanna to mow down the Huskies 1-2-3 in the 4th. With the 90-minute heat-imposed limit hanging over the team, the fifth inning was going to be their last at-bat. Harry Eller led off with a walk, but then Matawan was able to strike out the 2nd batter. Owen Chung beat out an infield hit and George Desoe walked to load the bases. Now, Matawan was worried. They had rested their two aces for this game, but with bases loaded, they had to call in their big lefty James Shea to try and put out the fire. On the Millburn side, after a second out, next up was Aiden Treue. First pitch was way outside. Second pitch, Treue crushed it (pictured) with a towering shot to deep left, but the Matawan left fielder was able to catch it on the run and Matawan won in a thriller.