Saratoga sweeps inaugural Cup
Saratoga Little League majors, minors champs top Glens Falls squads
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » The inaugural Adirondack Cup weekend couldn’t have gone any better for Saratoga Little League Saturday night as the regular season major champions, PBA, and minor champions, Julie & Co. Realty, swept Glens Falls to raise the winner’s cups high above their heads.
Majors champs PBA didn’t leave any doubts in the tilt with the Warren County champions, Warren Tire, with a six-run first inning en route to a 16-1 Adirondack Cup title.
“The kid (Glens Falls starter), I thought he threw decent, but it was a straight fastball and the kids were seeing it very well today,” PBA manager Jeff Babcock said. “The first inning we jumped right on them and then they didn’t really come back with many hits or anything. When they did we made the plays out in the field.”
Babcock was also able to trot out his ace, Mateo Avila, the major’s semifinal winning pitcher with a one-hit shutout effort early in the week.
“Since that first game was on Monday and we pitched him he was available today and then when we got to a bigger lead I let some of the other guys pitch who hadn’t gotten a chance to all year,” Babcock said. “We came back with Mateo (Avila) tonight to go for the winT. hey really deserve it this year.”
A quick six-run cushion in the bottom of the first inning, dissipated any pressure Avila may have had.
“There probably should be, but I didn’t feel it at all,” Avila said. “There was more pressure Monday. I think that’s why I didn’t have much pressure because they were helping me out batting.”
Babcock dodged an ice bath after Thursday’s championship victory, but Saratoga Little League president Derrick Legall made sure he got one Saturday night.
“I was in three Mayor’s Cup games and lost all of them back when East Side was dominant,” Babcock said. “It feels great to actually win some kind of Cup. It feels great.”
The minor champions, Julie & Co. Realty again had a back-and-forth contest. After dropping HT Lyons 7-2 on Thursday for the regular season title, Coach Rob Kelly had to pull out all the stops during a late inning rally Saturday night.
Hudson River Community Credit Union got around on Julie & Co. starter Daniel Klochaney for an early 3-0 lead.
“I think that I just had one bad inning at the start,” Klochaney said. “I didn’t really have my stuff and then I got my tempo going and I started pitching well.”
His teammates got him off the hook quickly, plating three runs to tie the game, before Hudson River Community Credit Union rallied for one more run and a 4-3 lead. That set the stage for Julie & Co.’s late inning heroics.
Klochaney relies on his two-pitch repertoire of a four-seam and two-seam fastball, the later curling away from right-handed batters and was an automatic start for the seasonending celebration contest.
“He pitched our playoff game on Tuesday, he pitched to 63 so I knew I could he pitch today and he did a great job,” Julie & Co. manager Rob Kelly said. “He was at 75 (pitches) and I had to figure out if I was bringing in Mateo (Kelly) or Cooper (Villiere) and I decided on Mateo.”
The move proved to be genius for the father-manager as Mateo Kelly was solid on the mound Saturday in a much-improved performance from Thursday’s championship game where he lasted just a few batters.
“I was way better,” Mateo Kelly said. “I felt a lot more confident. I got faster, so I was better.”
Mateo also relied on his fastball to keep Hudson River CCU off-balance, but he was steady at the plate late in the contest.
With the score tied in the bottom of the fifth inning, Owen Blaisdell led off with a single and stole second base before Kelly strolled up to the plate.
He delivered a hot shot towards the shortstop and beat out the throw to first as Rob Kelly was waving Blaisdell around third and directly to home for the goahead run.
That’s when riding to a championship game with your dad who is also coaching third base paid off for the Kelly’s.
“On the car ride I asked him ‘What’s the steal sign?’” Rob Kelly said. “‘(Mateo) said ‘The dab.’
“‘I think I’m going to look a little stupid over there, but O.K.’” The move popularized by NFL quarterback Cam Newton paid off for the Kelly family as dad dabbed twice and the younger Kelly, Mateo, raced to second and then third. When the ball was overthrown on his steal of third, he scampered home for the insurance run.
“I felt very good when I see it’s 6-4 and we’re about to get that last out,” Mateo Kelly said. “It feels good.”
Breathing a hefty sigh of relief and raising the Adirondack Cup was Rob Kelly.
“I thought we ran out of gas after the championship game on Thursday,” Rob Kelly said.
“They came back and I told them this is a special team, a special night, you’re going to remember this the rest of your lives and they came through again with a lot of energy.”