Nyack/Valley Cottage Advances in Little League Tourney

The Nyack/Valley Cottage All-Stars defeated the Congers All-Stars 4-3 in Congers Sunday night in the District 18 Little League Baseball Tournament Loser’s Bracket semifinals in exciting fashion. Birthday boy Jack Anderson homered for the 2nd straight game, and pitched 3 scoreless innings to pick up the win. The scoring started for N/VC when Dalton Feely crushed a solo home run that hit the scoreboard in the 2nd inning. Anderson would help himself out with a solo shot of his own in the 4th to put N/VC up 2-0. Feely singled and went to 2nd on an error, and later scored on a Dillon Krok base hit. Krok later scored on a Matt Semon hit to put N/VC up 4-0 heading into the bottom of the 4th. Krok came in to relieve Anderson as pitcher, and got in some trouble when Conger’s star Michael Cassiopo smashed a solo home run over the left field fence to make it 4-1. After giving up a single, Krok recovered beautifully to strike out the side.
With the tension of the game already starting to increase going into the bottom of the 5th, a loud round of fireworks nearby made things tougher for N/VC relief pitcher Tommy Murator, with the umpires having to pause the game several times. Catcher Christian Disimone threw out a stealing base-runner at 2nd base, but Congers was able to load the bases with 2 two outs on a Cassiopo single. Despite the noise of the fireworks, Murator was able to create fireworks of his own by getting a strikeout on a 3-2 count to end the inning. Congers threatened once again in the bottom of the 6th, which is the last inning, by hitting a 2-run homer to make it a 4-3 game. Nevertheless, N/VC showed their resiliency once again by getting a strikeout to end the game and seal the win.
With the victory, N/VC advances to the Loser’s Bracket finals against Stony Point Monday night at Liberty Field. The winner of that game plays Pearl River in the District 18 final. N/VC would have to defeat Pearl River twice to win the tournament because they came out of the loser’s bracket. Stony Point won the championship last year, but most of their players moved up to the Juniors division. If N/VC were to win the whole thing, they would end up having played 5 days in a row. For N/VC to pull this off, they going to need to dig deep and fight to the very last out with everything they’ve got.