Ridley caps stellar season with Junior crown
BROOKHAVEN » Ridley captured its first Mid-County Junior League championship with a 4-3 win over Brookhaven Thursday.
The idea of playing a deciding Game 3 never crossed the minds of the players.
Head coach Scott Heywood has been with most of his players, who are entering their junior and senior years at Ridley High, since the good old Cal Ripken and Ridley Area Little League days. His son Brian walked and scored a run Thursday in the game at Durkin Field.
“Me and (assistant) Rob (Geddes) have been coaching them since they’ve been 8 years old,” Heywood said. “It’s nice to win this.”
The players let their play on the field do the talking this year. No one could match up with this Ridley team, simply too talented for the competition. The top-seeded squad was undefeated before falling to Brandywine Youth Club in Game 2 of the semifinal round. Ask anyone on Ridley and they’ll tell you, they let that one slip away. Ridley bounced back the next night to win, 2-0, in a win-or-go-home Game 3.
In Game 1 of the finals, Ridley cruised to a 7-0 victory. Brookhaven showed some fight in the Game 2, and cut its three-run deficit to one in the sixth inning, but Sammy Brooks closed the door in relief to pick up the save.
“I knew we would win it tonight,” said starting pitcher Dom Dispensa. “Yeah. We knew it.”
Ridley’s final record in the Mid-County Junior League was 14-1. Not bad for a team making its debut in the league. Since EDCO changed its name to Mid-County in 2020, Ridley had never fielded a team in the Junior age group (16-19) until this spring.
While Dispensa and Brooks threw the ball well all season, Ridley’s ace was Chris Kimmel, the younger brother of Villanova linebacker and Archbishop Carroll football AllDelco Richie. In eight starts Chris Kimmel was 5-1 with a 1.33 ERA in 39.2 innings.
It was up to Brooks to seal the victory Thursday. He entered in the fifth after Dispensa walked Matt Jackson with one out. After striking out Jim Durkin, Brooks issued free passes to Nate DiProjetto and Andrew Baldini to load the bases for Brandon Short.
“I knew that whenever we got in trouble I was going in,” Brooks said. “We were pretty confident. I knew we had it.”
Yeah, but it got a little hairy in the sixth.
Short hit a slow roller in front of the mound, Brooks fielded the ball and fired to first base. Short would have beat the throw anyway, but the ball got past first baseman Larry Rose, allowing two runs (one unearned) to trot home.
Brooks was able to get the next hitter to pop up and tossed an easy 1-2-3 inning in the seventh. Crisis averted.
Dispensa pitched 5.1 innings to get the win. He gave up two runs on three hits and punched out four. After working out of trouble in the first, Dispensa breezed through the next four innings on 33 pitches.
“They were swinging first pitch and really anxious,” he said. “The slider, I kept going to it and they kept swinging at it.”
He allowed his defense to make plays. Jake Naumann, who started on varsity in 2022, was smooth over at shortstop.
Ridley took the lead with a run in the top of the first
inning without the benefit of a hit. Naumann was hit by a pitch to lead off the frame, moved to second base on a grounder and sprinted to third after Brookhaven’s catcher lazily threw a ball back to pitcher Paulie Miazza. Brooks’ grounder to second back knocked Naumann in from third.
Brooks broke a 1-1 deadlock with a run-scoring hit to right field. It would’ve been
two RBIs for Brooks, but the home plate umpire mistakenly called the trail runner out at home. It was egregious.
Luckily for Ridley, the bogus out call at the dish didn’t come back to haunt them.
Ridley made it 4-1 in the sixth inning. Kimmel worked a walk and Rose and Aidan Vanhoutan each singled. Kimmel scored Ridley’s final run on another throwing error by the catcher.