West Deptford Majors' Run Ends in Sectional Championship

The finally ran out of gas Saturday.

After a sparkling run through the and a gutty performance to win out of the loser’s bracket in the Section 4 tournament, West Deptford’s players hit the wall against Monroe in the sectional championship game.

Coming off an epic, three-and-a-half hour slugfest that saw seven combined home runs and 37 combined runs to beat Erial and get into the title game, West Deptford’s squad looked a bit like marathoners at the end of the race, and never got the offense going in the loss.

“The tank was on E—there wasn’t anything left,” coach Gus Knestaut said. “They were having fun, they were just out of gas.”

And out of pitchers—their run up through the loser’s bracket meant using plenty of arms, and the only true starter left heading into Saturday was Tommy Sampson, who battled through the first three innings, despite the fatigue of five games in six days.

“You could see he wasn’t throwing the same velocity,” Knestaut said.

When Sampson tired, the coaches went to Cole Malsbury and Jared Schultes, who were able to limit the damage the rest of the way. Neither one was a regular pitcher during All-Star play—in fact, neither had thrown a pitch in either the district or sectional tournaments.

The offense finally got things together in the third and fourth inning—Malsbury singled in the third to get West Deptford going, and Sampson’s baserunning, including a nifty steal of home when Monroe Township wasn’t paying attention following a walk, put the team on the board in the fourth.

It was too little, too late, though, as Monroe walked away with the title.

Still, Knestaut said he was proud of what the team, which wasn’t able to get a win in sectionals as 11-year-olds last year, accomplished this summer. They reeled off three victories in a row over difficult competition—an , a and —to get to the championship to go along with their stellar play in the district tournament.

“We took another step beyond what we were last year,” Knestaut said.

It won’t be long before the bats come back out, either—most of the players will be on the same AAU team starting in January, with an eye toward what they can do at the Junior League level next year.

And they’ll have a great run to look back on and learn from.

“It was beyond my wildest dreams that we made it this far,” Knestaut said.