Millburn 9U Baseball Moves to State Finals

In an amazing display of pitching and defense, the Millburn 9U team on July 3 won the Cal Ripken 2010 District 12 Championship over Scotch Plains 3-0 in eight innings. Coaches and parents agreed that it was the most exciting, best played youth baseball game they had ever seen. 

Ben Sauberman and Jason Talpalar each pitched four scoreless innings.  They combined for 11 strikeouts, gave up no walks, and never let more than one runner on base in any inning.  Only two Scotch Plains base runners reached third base in the extra inning affair.  The Millburn pitchers were backed up by a superb defense that recorded 10 assists and 13 putouts, led by second-baseman Christian Eliopoulos's four assists and two putouts.

Millburn loaded the bases in the third inning with one out on hits by RJ Fresen, Talpalar and Evan Jacob, but was unable to push a run across.  Scotch Plains threatened in the fifth inning.  With a runner on third and two outs, Sauberman fielded a hard grounder at first for the unassisted third out. 

Millburn next threatened in the top of the sixth on a lead off double by Talpalar. But the inning ended with the Scotch Plains catcher making a good play on a wild pitch, tagging out the runner attempting to steal home.

Scotch Plains nearly won the game in the bottom of the sixth inning.  With one out and a runner on second, their clean-up hitter lined a single to right fielder Albert Kuo who threw to cutoff-man Sauberman at first base, who spun and fired a strike to catcher Ryan Kirkwood.  In one fell swoop, Kirkwood squeezed the ball and tagged out the potential winning run sliding into home. The umpire verified Kirkwood held the ball and called the runner out.  The crowd erupted with relief.

Kirkwood had earlier gunned down a runner trying to steal second in the second inning.  After the play at home, Talpalar calmly struck out the next batter, stranding yet another runner in scoring position. The game proceeded to go into extra innings, nearing 10 p.m. with the sounds of fireworks in the distance.

The most controversial play occurred in the top of the seventh inning.  With one out and Sauberman on first, Zack Butter bunted for a hit.  The pitcher overthrew first base. As Butter hustled to second, the right fielder, alertly backing up, tried to throw him out. Sauberman was rounding third.  However, the Scotch Plains third baseman blocked his path.  Undeterred by the collision that stopped him in his tracks, Sauberman continued home and was tagged out by the catcher after the shortstop fired the ball home.  Butter, called safe on the close play at second, raced to third on the throw home. 

After a 30-minute delay in sorting out the play, including a phone call to the state commissioner, the umpires ruled that the ball was dead after the obstruction and that even without the obstruction the runner would not have reached home safely. Rather than awarding Sauberman home, Butter and Sauberman were returned to second and third.  Scotch Plains's third pitcher of the night, unfazed by the situation and delay, struck out the next two batters to end the threat.  In the bottom of the seventh, Talpalar yet again struck out a batter with a runner in scoring position to end the inning. The game entered the eighth inning.

Millburn finally got on the board in the top of the eighth.  With Fresen on first, Talpalar laced a single to right field, moving Fresen to third.  On a no ball, two strike count, Eliopoulos fought off a nasty third pitch, popping the ball into shallow right field.  The Scotch Plains second baseman made a great running catch, but an alert Fresen tagged up and scored on the sacrifice fly.  With Talpalar having moved to third on the throw home, Jacob laced a hard single to left field knocking in an insurance run.  One out later, Sauberman lined a two out single off of the pitcher's leg.  With runners on the corners and two outs, Butter ended the scoring with an RBI single to left.

Nursing the three-run cushion, Talpalar quickly made two outs.  With a runner on first, Scotch Plains's last hope hit a hard liner caught by Sauberman to end the game.  The Millburn players, coaches and fans went wild.

It was a superb performance by five tough 9 year old pitchers from both teams, with numerous game-saving defensive plays and some timely hitting, including two singles and a double by Talpalar and two hits each by Butter and Jacob.  The heartbroken Scotch Plains players and coaches were very gracious in defeat. The championship game was the third game Millburn played in 24 hours, defeating Westfield White the night before, and beating Lincoln Park (score of 12-8) that morning.

The members of the Millburn 9U are Tyler Adelman, Zack Butter, Alex Byington, Christian Eliopoulos, RJ Fresen, Evan Jacob, Ryan Kirkwood, Albert Kuo, Ben Sauberman, Matthew Schwind, Viraj Sethi, Kush Shah and Jason Talpalar.  The team is managed by Alan Talpalar, assisted by coaches Gary Butter, Marc Adelman and Adam Talpalar.  The Millburn 9U, who had to beat two undefeated teams in Scotch Plains and Westfield White for the district championship, now move on to the Cal Ripken Northern New Jersey 2010 State Championship starting on July 23 in Hazlet.

Author's Note: Thank you to Millburn 9's assistant coach and statistician Gary Butter for providing comprehensive information and statistics.