Raising the trophy

Woodstown carries newly-minted Elmer Classic Cup home after thrashing Schalick in annual rivalry at Elmer LL fields

THURSDAY BASEBALL
Woodstown 12, Schalick 4
Clearview 6, Pennsville 5

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

ELMER – As soon as sophomore catcher Ty Coblentz squeezed the slow-motion called third strike for the final out of the game, the Woodstown players enthusiastically sprinted off the diamond looking for two things.

Tuna subs (don’t ask, it’s a player thing) and a trophy.

For the first time in the history of the rivalry, the Elmer Little League is presenting the winner of the Woodstown-Schalick baseball and softball games played in their complex with a traveling trophy – the Elmer Classic Cup – to display in their school.

For the next year, the four-tiered award will sit in the Wolverines’ trophy case after they humbled their rivals 12-4 Thursday night to sweep the regular-season series and take sole possession of first place in the Tri-County Conference Diamond Division

“It just always feels good to beat Schalick, they’re a rival for us,” centerfielder Blake Bialecki said. “We saw the trophy before the game. It’s big.”

The scores of each game will be engraved around the trophy for posterity. The games currently shown on the trophy go back to 2012, but they’ve been playing the series a lot longer.

Woodstown coach Marc DeCastro isn’t so much about trophies as much as he is what this one represents. It’s his hope the excitement created by the raising of his trophy will carry over going forward leading to raising a much bigger prize down the road.

“I like when they get excited, it doesn’t matter to me,” DeCastro said. “What I care about, what I am hoping, is that this experience they can replicate. If they can treat every game the way that they treat this game and the way they stayed focused throughout it, if that comes from this, then I’m super happy. If I take a trophy home and then I lose tomorrow I don’t really care.”

After being no-hit the day before, the Wolverines’ bats came to life to the tune of eight hits and many were timely. They reached Schalick ace Luke Pokrovsky for four runs in the third inning, then scored in every inning thereafter.

Brent Williams broke the scoreless tie with a two-run single in the third. Bialecki had two hits and three RBIs. Andrew Pedrick reached base all five times he came to the plate, including his 95th career hit in the third inning. Jack Knorr had two hits and Rocco String had two RBIs.

“Getting no-hit is just a terrible feeling and we knew we had to bounce back from that,” Bialecki said. “We knew we had to be better and we had to have better attitudes and better approaches and we definitely did that today. We need to build off this.”

“Any time you beat a kid who is as good as (Pokrovsky) it’s a big deal,” DeCastro said. “We were trying to change some of the things that we’ve seen over the last couple days and alter the way that we approach the game, so I’m happy to see that positive thing. “

Bialecki, one of the many players on both teams who grew up playing on the Elmer LL fields, squeezed in the third run of the fourth inning, had an RBI single in the sixth and a sacrifice fly in the seventh.

“Winning districts over there was probably one of the best memories of my life and this just adds to it,” Bialecki said, pointing to the Little League diamonds across the way. 

The Cougars (10-8) threatened in the fourth, loading the bases and bringing the go-ahead run to the plate with two outs. But DeCastro brought in Thomas Boyles and the Boyles put out the fire against the only batter he faced. The Wolverines used six pitchers in the game.

Schalick did score three in the fifth to make it 6-4. Ricky Watt and Jake Siedlecki had RBI doubles and Pokrovsky stole home. But the Wolverines (10-8) answered with two in the sixth and broke it open with four in the seventh on only one hit – Jack Holladay’s bunt single.

CLEARVIEW 6, PENNSVILLE 5: The Pioneers pushed two unearned runs across in the bottom of the sixth after Pennsville tied the game with four in the top of the inning and then turned back another Pennsville threat in the seventh.

Chase Burchfield and Cohen Petrutz both had two-run singles in the sixth as the Eagles erased a 4-0 deficit to tie the game. In the seventh, Burchfield doubled home Logan Streitz with two outs to make it 6-5, but the Eagles (12-7) ran out of outs before they could bring the tying run home.

Burchfield had two hits and three RBIs. Streitz had two hits and Petrutz had two RBIs.