West Windsor survives in wild game
HAMILTON » Robbinsville deserves a ton of credit for how it came back, but West Windsor deserves even more for how it responded.
Watching a seven-run lead melt to one before an out was recorded in the fifth, West Windsor hung on for an 11-9 District 12 elimination victory at Sayen Park Saturday.
It was the Princeton Junction gang’s fourth straight elimination win and pits West Windsor against HTRBA on noon Sunday at Sayen. A big-time pitching showdown is on tap between Dave Gallagher travel teammates Caleb Kasof and Tyler Dunmeyer after Kasof threw outstanding in relief against Robbinsville.
HTRBA needs a victory for the title while West Windsor must beat the Hamilton squad two straight to win it.
It should be a battle after West Windsor avenged its only district loss by collecting 15 hits and three home runs in an entertaining slugfest that featured two homers including a grand slam, by Robbinsville’s Conor Stachowski.
West Windsor carried an 8-1 lead into the bottom of the fifth when disaster struck. Two runs scored on errors and Stachowski hit his slam to make it 8-7 and there were still no outs.
Kasof entered and got three quick outs, two by strikeout.
“I was very nervous,” he said. “But after my first out I started grooving and I was fine.”
“We never give up,” said catcher Troy Callahan, who was 3-for-3 with two RBIs. “We got down when they hit that dinger, but Caleb came in and lifted us up.”
Jason Carroll responded with a leadoff homer in the sixth to get some WW momentum back.
“That was huge,” Carroll said. “It gave us a bigger lead and it made us way more confident that we could come back and get the final three outs.”
One out after Andrew Van Dusen’s single, Jonah Levy provided the hammer with a tworun homer.
“I really wanted to hit because we were smashing the ball,” Levy said. “I just wanted to put a hit out there and put a couple runs up. Being able to hit it over the fence was just even better, more than you can ever imagine.”
Robbinsville’s Anthony Ziliani homered in the sixth but Grant Vinson got the final out to end it.
West Windsor never trailed, as Kasof homered for the third straight game to provide a 2-0 lead in the first.
“In rec I didn’t really hit that well,” Kasof said. “I took a little break because I hurt my thumb. I think that helped my swing so when I came back it was a lot better. I feel very confident.”
Stachowski’s solo homer made it 2-1 before Callahan hit a tworun double for the second straight game to spark a four-run fourth.
“I was kind of hoping for my good pitch, which is up in the zone,” Callahan said. “But it was down and in and I just swung and it went out there.”
RBI singles by Danny Hu and Robert Rossi made it 8-1 before Robbinsville staged its comeback, marking the end of Rossi’s day. The hurler threw four strong innings before wearying.
“All my off-speed was working,” said Rossi, who was 3-for-3 with two RBIs. “I kept the knuckle curve down so there were no home runs allowed. After all those innings of pitching my arm got a little sore and I couldn’t find the location, but we got through it.”
After winning it all as 11-yearolds, West Windsor is now hoping to get through HTRBA twice.
“We just want that banner,” Levy said. “We want to go as far as we can. We don’t want to stop playing baseball. HTRBA is a really good team, but we want it a lot. Our bats gotta work.”