Kayla gets two singles in Toms River’s victory
Kayla Roncin has yet to be retired through two games in the Little League MidAtlantic Regional and Toms River has yet to be defeated, either.
The central New Jersey team of 11 and 12yearolds improved to 20 in the sixteam tournament — the winner reaches South Williamsport, Pa., for the Little League World Series — with a 64 victory over Colonie (N.Y.) Little League in Bristol, Conn., on Sunday, all but cementing a spot in Friday’s semifinal round.
Roncin, the 12yearold girl not only playing with the boys but excelling, went 2for2 with a pair of singles —two of Toms River’s four hits on Sunday — after she had a tworun double in Saturday’s 122 rout of Northwest Washington (D.C.) Little League. Overall, she’s 3for3 with two runs scored and has also reached base on an error.
“She’s been great. We only had four hits today and she had two of them,” said Toms River manager Pete Avallone, whose team improved to 172 in tournamentplay this summer. “She really hasn’t shown anything to us or the boys that is surprising. We know she can play. I’m sure she’s turning some heads here, for people who aren’t used to seeing girls playing this far into the tournament. She’s making people talk the first couple of days.”
Colonie, which takes on West Salisbury (Md.) Little League Monday at 5 p.m., fell to 11.
Toms River’s Jason Kapp hit a threerun homer, Jonathan Giordano struck out nine over 3 ¹/₃ innings pitched for the win and Nick DeRose picked up the save with two innings of work out of the bullpen and drove in two runs.
Toms River meets West Salisbury Tuesday at 10 a.m. before facing Newark (Del.) National Little League , the defending MidAtlantic champion, in its poolplay finale on Wednesday.
“The goal is just to win; to be 20. That’s the goal,” Avallone said, alluding to several errors his team made in the later innings against Colonie. “I’m happy with that, but we can play a lot better than we’re playing right now. It’s a bright spot we’re still winning and we haven’t played well. We’re going to need to play better to keep playing.”