Pennsville gets first World Series victory, 7-6; 8 p.m. game that started at 10, ends at 12:28 a.m.
SENIOR SOFTBALL LL WORLD SERIES
Tuesday’s scores
Central 11, Southeast 1
Canada 7, West 2
Asia-Pacific 7, Latin America 1
Southeast 8, Europe-Africa 4
Southwest 5, Delaware 1
Pennsville 7, Asia-Pacific 6
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
ROXANA, Del. – It’s a good thing the Pennsville All-Stars have a day off from the Senior Softball Little League World Series on Wednesday. They really need to sleep in.
The Eagles played long into the night – Tuesday night into Wednesday morning long – before finally putting away the Asia-Pacific champion from The Philippines 7-6 for their first win in the Series.
“It’s rewarding” Pennsville manager Chris Watson said after it finally came to an end. “You feel like you put in a 12-hour day and got paid.”
The game ended at 12:28 a.m., about a half hour before Little League curfew. The Eagles, who had already taken a day trip to the beach to kill time before their scheduled 8 p.m. game, had been at the ballpark since 5:30 p.m. when they arrived to look in on The Philippines-Puerto Rico game, but that hadn’t even started yet as Canada and Hawaii went long.
The Eagles tried all kinds of things to stay occupied while they waited to play, but after a while you see some strange things. At the stroke of midnight, the dugout could be heard singing “Happy Birthday” to first baseman Bella Rappa, whose 17th birthday is Wednesday. Lily Edwards and Kylie Harris broke out a couple personal rally caps they built out of drink cups. And in the seventh, Watson, Harris and third baseman Bella Farina tried to corral a wayward moth in the infield that threatened to prolong the game even more.
“I was sitting right next to Jess (while they waited) and we were both talking about how bored we were and we just wanted to play,” Watson said. “You can only do so much scouting and we’re sitting there scouting the ballgame, but after a while it’s like, all right, we know these batters and pitchers and we know the other team’s batters and pitchers, just come on, get the game going.”
“I was bored before we started playing,” said Bretz, who hadn’t realized it was past midnight when the game ended. “But now it’s good.”
Once they got down to the serious business of the game, which started at 10:05 p.m. (after the concession stand shut down for the night), Farina gave the Eagles a 2-0 lead for the second game in a row and Bretz pitched and hit them to a victory.
Bretz returned to the circle as a starter for the first time since the quarterfinals of the East Regional. She gave the Eagles a complete game and with the exception of one inning was as sharp as she was earlier in the tournament.
She put The Philippines down in order in the first, but in the second they batted around to tie the game. Five of their first six hitters of the inning reached on hits or walks and they batted with the bases loaded four times and all four times brought in a run.
But after that, Bretz gave up just four hits, one unearned run and struck out three for her first win since her no-hitter against Morris Plains in the state tournament.
“My mindset definitely changed (after the big inning),” she said. “It went from throwing the ball and spin it past their bats to just letting them hit the ball. The mindset games kind of fixed everything else. I was spinning the ball more and I thought, oh, let’s just throw it at the bat.”
Bretz was just as effective at the plate. She gave the Eagles a 5-0 lead with a three-run double in the second inning and slammed a two-run homer in the fourth to give them a 7-5 lead after The Philippines reached her for five runs in the second to tie the game.
“Obviously, I couldn’t have done it without the other people getting on,” Bretz said. “It just felt good to stroke the ball well, because I hadn’t been hitting well recently, so it felt good to get a good stroke on the ball.”
Farina gave the Eagles a 2-0 lead with a two-out, two-run single in the first off Jeryll Duller, the second pitcher of the inning. Bretz hit her double off Duller and homered off ace Angelica Jean Latriz, who came on in the third after throwing 93 pitches in The Philippines’ tournament opener against Puerto Rico.
The homer was Bretz’ third this tournament in games in which she was pitching. One of them came after she was lifted from the circle, but it was still a game she started.
“When she came around after hitting the home run I said to her something along the lines of ‘how ‘bout that, you can hit when you’re pitching,’” Watson said. “That’s been the thing all along, right, when she’s pitching she doesn’t have the mindset to hit home runs, but I think we’re kind of getting over that at this point. I think that’s been beaten to death; I think we’re good now. This girl can hit.”
The Philippines didn’t give Bretz another chance to hurt them. They intentionally walked her the next time she came to the plate and tried to do it again in the seventh before Watson reminded them the rules prohibit intentionally walking the same hitter twice in the game. They walked her on four pitches anyway.
“It happened a lot during high school season, too,” Bretz said. “Obviously, I want to hit the ball, but that’s crazy that I gained respect from the coaches from a different country. I think that’s insane.”
The Eagles were scheduled to have a 9 a.m. off-day practice Wednesday and then head to the beach for a little R&R. Given the hour of the game’s finish, practice has been bumped up to noon.
“That kind of solves a problem,” Watson said. “I was worried about them getting sunburned and spending too much energy in the water and everything, so now we’ll just go late and we’ll have dinner. Maybe they can run around the water a little bit, but it’ll be brief.”
SERIES STUFF: Edwards had four hits in the game for Pennsville … Outfielder Savannah Palverento was hit in the head with a pitch in the third inning. She came out for precaution, but appeared fine after the game … Watson’s bad luck with coin tosses continued. The Eagles will be the visitors in all four of their pool games this week as he all four tosses in the coaches meeting … Philippines shortstop Daniela Cabangon was hit in a face with a pitch in the game with Puerto Rico and after being helped to the dugout was transported to a nearby hospital for evaluation … The Eagles’ moth wranglers eventually did capture the insect and carried it over to the fence.
SENIOR SOFTBALL LL WORLD SERIES
Pennsville 7, Asia-Pacific 6
Pennsville 230 200 0 – 7 13 2
Asia-Pacific 050 100 0 – 6 7 0
WP: Jess Bretz. LP: Laira Silverio. 2B: Kylie Harris (P), Jess Bretz (P). HR: Jess Bretz (P).
| STANDINGS | W | L | RF | RA |
| Pool A | ||||
| Southwest | 2 | 0 | 15 | 2 |
| Delaware | 1 | 1 | 9 | 10 |
| Pennsville | 1 | 1 | 12 | 14 |
| Asia-Pacific | 1 | 1 | 13 | 8 |
| Latin America | 0 | 2 | 2 | 17 |
| Pool B | ||||
| Canada | 2 | 0 | 17 | 2 |
| Central | 2 | 0 | 18 | 4 |
| Southeast | 1 | 2 | 8 | 25 |
| Europe-Africa | 0 | 1 | 4 | 8 |
| West | 0 | 2 | 5 | 14 |
Riverview Sports News 