Millers Win The Krug Tournament

Before Saturday afternoon, the last time the Millers won the annual home Phil “Wally” Krug Memorial baseball tournament was 2008 and they went on to win the state sectional championship with the best team in school history.

While it may be a bit premature to start sizing the boys up for state championship jackets, the Millers won the Krug Tournament at MHS on Saturday, with quite possibly the best performance by any team in the tournament’s 10 year history.

Millburn defeated Caldwell in the first round and defending tourney champs Passaic Valley in the final by a combined score of 21-6. The final score of the championship game, 13-4, set a record for the largest margin of victory in the tournament final.

“This was a great tournament, there were some very good teams here, we played pretty good baseball, better than we had been playing,” said MHS first year head coach Brian Chapman.

It seems a bit laughable after the fact, but the championship game was actually close at one point and the Blue and White boys were even trailing, until Millburn’s sixth inning, 10 run eruption.

With the game knotted at three heading into the top half of the sixth (Millburn was designated road team), Danny Frischman led off with a base hit to left field. Twelve of the next 13 Millburn batters reached base in the inning, and turned a close contest into a blowout.

“As everyone knows, it’s not the hits that you get, it’s the timeliness of those hits,” Chapman said. “Today we got timely hits. When we needed someone to put a ball in play or knock one into the outfield we got it.”

Successive hits by Frischman, Anthony Del Greco, Ian Barry (tournament MVP), Milo Freeman, and Tim Swanson (offensive MVP), put the Millers up 6-3. Then consecutive hits by Ian Riddell and Jeff Fisher put Millburn up 8-3 and knocked PV’s starting pitcher out of the game.

Still in the sixth, Will Fitzgerald, Frischman and Del Greco each worked walks to force in another run. Barry followed with a two-run single and Freeman knocked the final two runs with a single to leftfield.

Passaic Valley avoided the mercy rule when Drew Sous knocked in their fourth run with an RBI triple.

Swanson got Millburn on the board in the second inning, knocking in Barry and Freeman with an RBI single to centerfield. In the bottom half of the second, Swanson helped keep PV to just one score, when he gunned down a runner at the plate from left field, backing up DelGreco at third, who was overthrown by catcher Felipe Bomfim in an attempt to throw out Glen Wilke, trying to steal third. Sous scored in the inning on Wilke’s RBI single.

“I’ve been involved with baseball for 35 years and I’ve never seen that play made,” Chapman said of Swanson’s throw. “If you kind of think of where he had to come from in deep left field, just to anticipate, be in a good back up position and then throw a strike and a great play by Felipe on the back end.”

In the fourth inning, a throwing error on Millburn pitcher, Clayton Elder, allowed PV to tie the game up at two. A base hit by Sous put the Hornets up by a run later in the inning. Millburn tied up the score in the top of the fifth, when Swanson scored on a throwing error.

Millburn’s lineup simply wore down the opposition. With runners on base, the Miller bats went 12-of-20 (an astounding .600 average), struck out just twice and left three runners on base through the first six innings. In total, they picked up 14 hits and five walks, essentially having runners on base all game long.

Stephen Near picked up the win for the Millers, coming in relief of Elder, who was removed from the game because of reaching his pitch count limit. Millburn’s pitchers (including a one inning stint by Corey Abrams) combined for two strikeouts, and allowed nine hits. Catcher Bomfim also played a role in the win for Millburn, throwing out two base stealers.

“What I was happy about is that we that continued to get good pitching, our pitchers have pitched consistently good throughout and our defense played a lot better today,” Chapman said. “We limited the other teams’ opportunities, we held them to three outs. Our pitching and our defense allowed us time for our bats to wake up.”

Swanson, Barry, and Freeman each led the Millers in the championship game with three RBI apiece.

Millburn, which improved to 3-2, is in action again on Monday at Columbia High School.