Mechanicville-Stillwater earns 16-6 win to clinch best-of-three series
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » With Mechanicville-Stillwater Little League 9-10 year-olds traveling to Saratoga Springs Little League for a late start under the lights at West Side Rec Monday night, the best-of-three District 11/12 finale was expected to be a game of attrition. Who had pitching left available under the Little League pitching rules after playing the last five nights?
It all came down to an error — not in the field, but in the paperwork and forced a dad to put the fate of his team and his son’s friends on the mound.
It all worked out for the Couser family Monday night.
Christopher Couser threw 78 pitches, the maximum allowed for a single game and was buoyed by his Mechanicville-Stillwater defense along with a 15-run output to claim the combined district/ crossover title.
“I just threw my fastball today because every time I threw a breaking ball at them they hit it because they are always early on our fastballs or early on all these off-speeds,” Christopher Couser said surrounded by teammates after the 16-6 win. “So I just threw my fastball in different positions, he was doing all these signs, I just did my jam.”
The diminutive right hander was much more confident post game as his father, Dan, had to make the call and live with the decision.
“I try to separate it, I really try to separate it,” Dan Couser said. “We talk about that, ‘Sometimes I’m talking to you as a dad, sometimes I’m talking you as a baseball coach,’” Couser said. “We’re getting better at separating the two.
“He got really focused today, when he got out of bed this morning it was the calmest I had ever seen him and my wife and I were talking about it and I said ‘I think he’s going to be all set. As soon as he threw the first pitch and it was a strike I knew we’d be all right.”
The younger Couser went 5 1/3 innings, giving up six runs on four hits. He struck out two batters but got outs with confidence in his teammates behind him.
“Going through my mind I got a little nervous at parts, but then I realized I got this big team backing me up, telling me what to do, telling me what’s happening,” Christopher Couser said.
Mechanicville-Stillwater opened up the contest with an eight-run first inning on five hits and took advantage of four rare errors by the Saratoga defense.
Saratoga rallied in the bottom of the second inning after its own 1-2-3 second stanza and cut the lead in half, 8-4 on three hits, including a two-RBI single by Thomas McNamara.
Mechanicville put the contest away a five-run fifth inning that included Tommy Pitts clearing the bases with his three-run triple, his second hit of the night and giving him five RBIs on the night, scoring three runs on the night.
“I’m just looking for it to be in the strike zone, that’s all that matters,” Pitts said. “I just saw the ball coming and tried to make contact and just hit the ball. I’m just really happy that I got a big hit and now we can move on in the game and be happy that we scored lots of runs.”
Saratoga forced Monday night’s ‘if necessary’ contest, rebounding from a heartbreaking 8-7 home opener to the series Saturday afternoon. The Spa City Blue Shirts earned their revenge, a 5-4 on the road Sunday to force the series finale Monday night under the lights.
“These kids are pretty resilient kids,” Dan Couser said. “We said ‘We didn’t play our best baseball. We’re capable of playing way better baseball and we’ll go back up there and show them how we play baseball tomorrow.’
“I don’t believe that a loss is ever good, but I think that kind of helped us out a little bit dealing with that adversity.”
The all-star season continues for MechanicvilleStillwater when it hosts the winner of the District 10 champion Whitestown/District 37 champion Plattsburgh 5:45 p.m. Thursday in Mechanicville for another best-of-three series.
“Look at the fans here tonight, this is a big group, the family is only going to get bigger,” Dan Couser said.
“You play at home now so people that maybe didn’t want to make the 30 minute drive up here the community will come. It’ll be a lot of fun for these kids.”