BEVERLY, MASS. – It was their first loss in exactly three weeks, and it came against a team located nearly 300 miles away,
The North Manchester/Hooksett Little League 9-, 10- and 11-year-old Little League all-stars, representing New Hampshire at the Eastern Regionals – at the Harry Ball Little League contest in Beverly, Mass. – fell to Mid-Island, NY in the opening game of tournament pool play Monday.
Though the Granite State champs kept the contest close for the first five innings, entering the final frame down, 3-0, their counterparts from the Empire State added four runs in the top-of the sixth and then shut NMHLL down in order in the bottom of the inning to take the opening contest of pool play.
While acknowledging his team didn’t have its best performance of the summer, NMHLL head coach Marcus Luce credited his young athletes for their effort and attitude and said they’d be prepared for their next challenge on Wednesday against the state champs from Delaware.
“Our pitchers threw strikes. We made some plays there,” he said. “You know, you’ve got to make the extraordinary plays, and there were a couple we left out there … and we had some good at-bats, but they made some good plays and we needed something to drop and probably a few more hits and we didn’t have that today.”
The New Yorkers, he said, were comparable in skill level to many of the in-state teams NMHLL had to play – including Bedford, Portsmouth, Monadnock and Salem.
“Really, I thought, their first pitcher was good, and the second pitcher came in there, and he had a good curve ball. You know, we haven’t seen a ton of great pitching with good curveballs, so I think it fooled us a little bit,” said Luce. “You know, (New York) is good team, but as I told the kids, if we play them ten times, we’d get our fair share of wins. Today just wasn’t one of the says where we were going to get the win.
He added, “their heads are up and we still have (at least) two more games this week, so that’s where our focus is now.”
So you’re saying there’s a chance?
Should Delaware defeat New York today, and NMHLL defeat Delaware in their contest at 5 p.m. Wednesday, the three teams would finish in a three-way tie, giving the local nine a chance to still advance to the tournament knockout round Thursday.
“It’d be a unique scenario,” said Luce, “so I guess we’ll be rooting hard for Delaware tomorrow and then we’ll have to come down and beat them on Wednesday.”
Regardless of whether New Hampshire’s champs advance, Luce said he and fellow coaches are focused on the team’s accomplishments just to reach this point.
“I told (the players), again, this is the first time in our league’s history that we’ve been to the 11U Eastern Regionals), so, I mean, we’re just enjoy what this week is, which is a few more baseball games,” he said. “It’s been a heck of a good summer for these kids.”
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