By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

PENNSVILLE – No one wanted to see Monday night’s District 3 Little League Tournament game go the distance more than East Vineland manager Scott Perkins.

His team was playing to clinch the No. 1 seed in the American Division and was leading Pennsville when the umpires stopped play in the third inning because of the weather. There was no guarantee the rain would stop and a suspension was the last thing Perkins wanted.

If they had sent the teams home for the night, play would have resumed Tuesday and Perkins might not have been there. He was catching a plane at 5 o’clock in the morning for a business trip to Atlanta.

Fortunately, the rain did stop, diamond dry was spread all around and play resumed – and East Vineland went on to post a 13-1 victory in four innings.

“It all started earlier today,” Perkins said. “I’m watching the news, I’m watching the radar throughout the entire day, really just crossing my fingers because the weather over the past five days has been so unpredictable that it just leads us right into this.

“Then we see sunshine just a couple miles away and downpours coming straight down. Now, I’m nervous because then you see lightning strikes, sweat is definitely coming down because I knew I had a big thing tomorrow for work and this is where I needed to be.”

The game went through three stoppages and two abbreviated restarts for about 45 minutes in delays. If the game had gone to the next day, Perkins probably would have changed his plans.

“I probably would have canceled my trip, actually,” he said. “I love these boys, I love these coaches and I love this team. This is a once-in-a-lifetime (event). Two of the players are my own kids so I didn’t want to miss that for the world. Work will be there forever.”

Now, he doesn’t have to make that call. East Vineland is done with pool play and will now play the No. 2 seed from the National Division in the double-loss finals round at 5:45 p.m. June 30 in Elmer.

Perkins’ team was good before the delay, opening a 5-0 lead with aggressive base running and solid fielding, but was even better coming back. They scored eight runs in the two innings once play resumed. They scored five runs on pitches that had gotten away at home plate.

“This is our third game and they’ve been building momentum each time,” Perkins said. “We had momentum going into the rain, so you’re questioning whether they’re going to be in the game and focused (once play resumed), but actually they were laser-focused coming out of that because they wanted to play so bad. Because the rain started it made them want to play more.”

East Vineland starting pitcher Enzo Candelario came to play. He pitched three innings of no-hit ball and barreled a pitch up in the zone for a three-run homer in a six-run fourth inning.

The right-hander threw 43 pitches in his first tournament start, faced two batters over the minimum and got a lot of help from his defense to keep the gem alive. He walked the first two Pennsville batters he faced, but both were erased on fielder’s choices to third base. He also had a runner thrown out at first from right field.

“I had no idea I had a no-hitter,” Canderlario said. “After I sat down my coach told me no-hitter. I was happy.”

His home run gave East Vineland a 13-1 lead. It was his eighth homer of the Little League season and first of the all-star tournament. He also had an RBI double and sacrifice fly for five total RBIs.

Liam Luciano broke up the no-hitter with a sharp single up the middle off reliever Wesley Perkins leading off the fourth. He scored Pennsville’s first run of the tournament on Greyson Robbins’ two-out single to right.

“We’re better than what we’ve played, for sure, the last two games,” Pennsville manager Phil Todd said. “It hurts. We’re better than that.”

Pennsville will play its final pool game Thursday at Elmer. The approach will be to play all the 12s because it will be their final game at this level.

East Vineland  232 6 – 13 9 2
Pennsville        000 1 –   1 2 2
WP: Enzo Candelario (1-0). LP: Caleb Fontaine (0-1). HR: Enzo Candelario (EV).

District 3 LL Tournament

AMERICAN	W	L	RATIO
x-East Vineland	3	0	0.3333
Millville Am.	1	1	0.6667
Elmer	0	1	1.0000
Pennsville	0	2	2.0000
NATIONAL
x-South Vineland	3	0	0.2222
Buena	1	1	0.4167
Salem	0	1	0.6667
South Cumberland	0	2	2.5000

Monday’s Games
East Vineland 13, Pennsville 1
South Vineland 15, South Cumberland 0
Tuesday’s Games
Elmer at Millville American, 5:45 p.m.
Salem at Buena, 5:45 p.m.
Wednesday’s Game
South Cumberland at Salem, 5:45 p.m.
Thursday’s Game
Pennsville at Elmer, 5:45 p.m.

Photo: The East Vineland LL All-Stars escort Enzo Candelario (orange brim) to the dugout after celebrating his three-run homer in the fourth inning Monday night.

District 3 Senior Softball

DISTRICT 3	W	L	RATIO
Elmer	1	0	0.285
Pennsville	0	0	0.000
Franklin Twp.	0	1	0.428

Monday’s Game
Elmer 3, Franklin Twp. 2
Tuesday’s Game
Pennsville at Franklin Twp., 5:45 p.m.
Wednesday’s Game
Elmer at Pennsville, 5:45 p.m.

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.

Pennsville’s District 3 LL tourney opener pushed back to Thursday

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

MILLVILLE – Phil Todd is confident his Pennsville Little League all-stars are strong enough to get to the playoff round of the District 3 tournament. After Wednesday, it’s just going to take them a little longer to get there.

The local Little Leaguers were “super comfortable and ready to play” their tournament opener at Millville American Wednesday night, but their road to Williamsport was delayed at least a day when the game was postponed by the weather. In fact, all three District 3 games scheduled for Wednesday were postponed.

The teams will try again Thursday at the Millville American LL field, but Todd isn’t that convinced the weather will cooperate then, either. He already was at the field and most of the players had just started heading down Route 49 when officials called the game.

“We were super comfortable and ready to play, that’s for sure,” the Pennsville manager said. “We were expecting a tough fought game that could go either way. There are some talented kids over there and they’re very well-coached.”

The postponement has impacted the Pennsville pitching plan, but Todd said “I’ have a lot of kids who throw strikes.”

The manager had planned to go with right-handers Vincent Grether and Liam Luciano Wednesday night and come back with them in Game 3 against Elmer. He may go back to the same rotation if they play Thursday, or go with his right-hander Caleb Fontaine and if they get pushed to the weekend save Grether for Game 3.

“We have to kind of process what’s happening, if we’re going to play for sure or not tomorrow or the weekend, and then try to throw a game plan together,” Todd said. “We’re not only thinking about this game, we’re thinking about third game and then, ultimately, playoffs if we get there.”