Seymour drops opening game in Eastern Regional

BRISTOL >> On Saturday, Seymour was looking good with a five-run lead over Robbinsville, N.J. in the second inning of the Little League Eastern Regional 11-12 double-elimination round.

But New Jersey chipped away and would go on to complete one of its biggest comebacks of the season.

Kailey Pacifico belted a gamewinning RBI double with two outs in the fifth inning to lead New Jersey to a 6-5 win over Seymour at Breen Field.

New Jersey advances to the winners bracket and will play today’s New York-Rhode Island winner on Monday at 7 p.m. Seymour advances to the losers bracket and will face Maryland today at 7 p.m.

“No doubt we were concerned falling behind 5-0,” New Jersey coach Steve Krebs said. “Their pitcher was tremendous and had us off balance and their out-

FROM PAGE 1 fielders were tremendous. But we played a little bit of small ball and battled back.

“This was a big comeback for New Jersey. Typically when we played this season in New Jersey we would get early leadsand use our strong pitching and defense to get the win. This was different for us. Our team was a bit flustered but it was good to see them come back.”

In the second inning, Seymour had three hits and three walks capped by a three-run double by Jacey Cosciello to take a 5-0 lead. But New Jersey responded with three runs in the in the bottom of the third inning and three runs in the bottom of the fifth inning for the comeback.

In the third inning, New Jersey scored two runs off wild pitches and another on a sacrifice fly to right field by Alexa Klepper to score Ella Iorio from third base.

In the fifth inning, with two runs in and the score tied at 5, Pacifico’s RBI double sent her teammates jumping up and down with excitement.

“When I hit it, I thought the ball was going to be caught,” Pacifico said. “But it just kept going and going. We were concerned being behind and that was tough. But we all just kept battling and worked hard to come back and win.”

Seymour manager Bob Rousseau gave New Jersey credit for coming back.

“When we jumped out to the 5-0 lead, we respect them and we knew they wouldn’t quit and would battle back,” Rousseau said. “We just made some mistakes. They did a good job battling back. We hope to have another shot and play them again in this tournament.”