UPDATED
Pennsville LL has work to do after dropping District 3 Tournament opener
DISTRICT 3 LITTLE LEAGUE
Thursday’s Games
American Pool
Millville American 11, Pennsville 0, 5 inns.
East Vineland at Elmer, ppd. to Saturday
National Pool
Buena 15, South Cumberland 0
South Vineland 4, Salem 3, 8 inns.
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
MILLVILLE – The Pennsville Little League All-Stars still believe they have what it takes to get to the District 3 playoffs. It’s just going to take a little more work to get there.
Pennsville lost its rain-delayed tournament opener Thursday 11-0 in five innings at Millville American, leaving little room for error going forward. The top two teams in their division advance to the playoffs, meaning the local Little Leaguers must win the two pool games they have remaining.
“We have a lot of talented kids, so I think we can go win two games and then play to go to the playoffs,” Pennsville manager Phil Todd said. “I didn’t think we brought our A-game (tonight) and they brought theirs. That McCafferty kid is a stud. Wasn’t expecting that.”
Millville pitcher Luke McCafferty pitched a complete-game two-hit shutout on 77 pitches. Both hits he allowed (to John Swiderski and JoJo Mannino) were bad hop rockets past an infielder’s ear in the fourth inning. He struck out 12 and all 15 of his outs stayed in the infield.
“Today was a very good game because I did very well and usually that doesn’t happen against very good teams,” the pitcher said.
Millville’s hitters, meanwhile, roughed up three Pennsville pitchers for eight hits –six from the top three spots in the lineup – and capitalized on five errors.
Pennsville did threaten in the fourth. They loaded the bases with one out, bringing the tying run to the plate, prompting a mound visit from manager Will McCafferty, the pitcher’s dad. Whatever he said did the trick. Luke fanned the next two batters on six pitches to end the inning and the threat.
“(I just told him) settle down, throw some strikes, you’ve got a defense behind you, just get some outs, one run isn’t going to kill us, so we’ll get some outs and go to work,” Will said.
“It just helped me focus and keep my cool and not mess up,” Luke said. “I wasn’t thinking straight and I just needed my head screwed on.”
Millville took control of the game with four runs in the third inning on its second look at Pennsville starter Vincent Grether. They batted around in the fifth to break it open. All five of Pennsville’s errors came in the two big innings.
“The crazy part is all those kids normally make those plays,” Todd said. “Ninety-nine out of 100 times those kids make those plays and then literally the one out of 100 where they don’t all happen in the same inning.”
Millville Am 004 07 – 11 8 1
Pennsville 000 00 – 0 2 5
WP: Luke McCafferty (1-0). LP: Vincent Grether (0-1).
| AMERICAN | W | L | RATIO |
| Millville Am. | 1 | 0 | 0.000 |
| East Vineland | 0 | 0 | 0.000 |
| Elmer | 0 | 0 | 0.000 |
| Pennsville | 0 | 1 | 1.833 |
| NATIONAL | |||
| Buena | 1 | 0 | 0.000 |
| South Vineland | 1 | 0 | 0.500 |
| Salem | 0 | 1 | 0.667 |
| South Cumberland | 0 | 1 | 2.500 |
Friday’s Games
East Vineland at Millville Am.
Buena at South Vineland
Monday’s Games
East Vineland at Pennsville
South Vineland at South Cumberland
Top two teams in each division advance to double-loss elimination tournament. District winner advances to Section 4 tournament at Haddonfield, July 14-19. District 3 winner plays District 16 (Wildwood area) winner in first game, July 14, 8 p.m. Districts 13, 14 and 15 also participating.
Riverview Sports News 