Lawrence eliminated from Section 3 tourney
OCEAN TWP. » The Pride of Lawrence, the 12-Year-Old Little Leaguers who won the township’s first District 12 title in 42 years, continued to play exciting baseball in this weekend’s Section 3 Tournament, but not with the same outcome.
Head coach Sean Kelly’s squad played a pair of one-run ballgames at Colt Field, only to come up on the short end of both to fall out of the sectional earlier than it had hoped.
“All the kids were absolutely fabulous,” Kelly said. “In both games, we put ourselves right where we wanted to be.”
Just like a week ago in the district tournament, Lawrence displayed a flair for the dramatic, falling behind Middletown, 5-0, Saturday only to cut the lead to a run when Robert Kelly hit a grand slam in the bottom of the fourth.
Serving as the home team, Lawrence got runners on base in each of the final innings, but could not come up with the winning run like it did last week at HTRBA’s Van Horn Park.
Forced to return Sunday for a losers’ bracket game, Lawrence stayed scoreless with the host team until scoring two runs in the top of the fourth when a double by T.J. Niemann and a walk to Robert Kelly were followed shortly thereafter by a two-run double from Kellen Moore.
Lawrence’s delight was short-lived when Ocean came back to take advantage of three errors to score four times in the bottom of the frame.
With solid pitching throughout from Robert Kelly, Dan Dryzga, Ben Pawlak and Rohun Kaistha, Lawrence gave itself a shot in the top of the sixth as Niemann beat out an infield single, then J.T. Gorden singled up the middle with one out. Moore beat out a possible double play ball, and Niemann rambled home when the ball got away to trim the lead to one run once again.
But, this time, Dryzga’s screaming line drive to left field was caught to end the sectional run too soon.
“Even though things didn’t go our way this time, the boys never gave up,” said Sean Kelly, who was assisted by A.J. Moore and Marcos Lopez Jr. “They were a really scrappy bunch. Not one kid ever quit!”
Middletown Lawrence Lawrence Ocean 2B:
Kelly (L);
RBIs: 212 000 000 400
Kelly 4 (L).
000 201 000 40x — — — —
McGuire, Niemann, Moore (L); Moore 2 (L).
5 4 3 4