Bordentown’s 11-year-old All-Star baseball manager Brian Guire couldn’t have put it better.
“There are,” Guire said, “a lot of good things coming out of Bordentown Little League right now.”
Let us count the ways.
Aside from the 12-year-old softballers reaching the East Regionals, two other teams in town will also raise championship banners next season. Guire’s squad won the District 12 title and began Section 4 play July 24, while the 10-year-old softball team won District 12 and Section 4 before coming within one win of the state crown.
“It’s been a great summer,” softball coach Jon Flynn said. “With a small town like Bordentown it really brings everybody together. We had 150 people at our sectional (championship) game. It’s not everybody with just kids. People see it on social media and they come out and support. The town is involved. Bordentown Elks has really helped our softball program.”
What made both teams so impressive, is the tenacity and resilience each showed in battling out of elimination brackets.
In district softball play, Bordentown immediately fell into the loser’s bracket with a first-round setback to West Windsor. The Bombers never flinched, as they came back to defeat Robbinsville 4-0, and West Windsor 5-4 and 9-8.
“District 12 is really tough, and that was a tough run,” Flynn said. “But these girls are players; they fought. We had a lot of practice leading up to that point, I think the loss woke them up. It definitely woke up their bats and after that we started to hit and went on a run. We have a great pitcher in Katelin Hoppe, we rode her in districts and she was awesome. If we hit and put runs on the board we’re a tough team to beat.”
In the sectionals Bordentown lost the “if” game but came back to grab the title by claiming the winner-take-all championship game. In states, the Bombers battled from the loser’s bracket yet again, but this time fell to Lodi-Washington in the title game.
Along with Hoppe, the team consisted of Lia Flynn, Kendall Lampman, Riley Pieloch, Addie Maloney, Maddie Szafran, Katie Kovac, Natalie Crowell, Brielle Besserman, Amelia Rebadavia, Bella Nucera and Jules Moralda. The coaches were Pat Goodspeed and Nick Vignets.
“Our original goal was just to win District 12, we knew how hard it is to win that,” Flynn said. “Once we achieved that, they just really believed in themselves. They did it the hard way but they got it done. They took that challenge on, they never hung their heads and just kept fighting.”
The same could be said for the baseball 11s, who were beaten by Sunnybrae in the District 12 winner’s bracket final, then rallied to defeat Robbinsville once and Sunnybrae twice. Bordentown outscored Sunnybrae 23-1 in the two games.
“We knew that the runs (Sunnybrae) scored were unearned, we knew we made mistakes on defense that we could work on and get better at,” Guire said. “The mindset was fine after they lost. The kids were confident. There was no pressure, they just came out and knew they had to win every inning from there on out.”
Asked to explain the offensive outburst against Sunnybrae, Guire said, “Hitting is contagious. We got good pitching and better defense and everybody started hitting. We’ve been there before, no one was pressing and they looked confident in themselves.”
The nucleus of the team has been together since they were 7-years-old. With eight of the 10 players able to throw, pitching depth was never an issue. The roster included Nick Filipponi, Danny Cutrupi, Jack Flanagan, Luca Mannino, Nick Carlini, Chris Mirabelli, Luke Guire, Matt Marciniak, Nick Dromboski and Connor Collora. Assistant coaches were Tim Dromboski and Nick Carlini.
The group was riding high entering sectionals after their D-12 comeback.
“It’s a huge accomplishment to come out of the loser’s bracket and win districts,” Guire said. “Our kids never got down on themselves. We preach that we’re the only team that can beat us. If we don’t beat ourselves we always have a good chance to win.”
That’s been the story of the summer in Bordentown Little League.
