Pittsfield 10-Year-Olds Earn District 1 LL Crown
ADAMS, Mass. – The Pittsfield Little League 10-year-old All-Stars Sunday exploded for 20 runs in the bottom of the second inning and went on to a 20-3 win over Adams-Cheshire in the final round of the Don Gleason District 1 Tournament at Willard “Beaver” Bard Park.
Thomas St. John went 2-for-2 with three RBIs, and Pittsfield piled up 10 hits on the way to ending the game in the third inning via the run rule.
The victory sends the Pittsfield 10s into the Section 1 Tournament, where they will host Westfiield, the runner up in the Section 2 tournament after a 3-2 loss to Longmeadow on Sunday afternoon.
While Pittsfield’s offense was the main difference on Sunday, the pitching of Kooper Colon kept it a scoreless game until his team’s offense could get untracked.
In the top of the first inning, Adams-Cheshire got a single from Joey Milesi and a walk by Danny Collins but was unable to cash in because Colon ended the inning with a ground ball to the left side.
In the second, Abel Lysko and Bentley Martin worked back-to-back walks for Adams-Cheshire, but Colon struck out the next three hitters to strand both runners in scoring position.
“He did a good job, and, you know, he didn’t have his best stuff today,” Pittsfield coach Matt Stracuzzi said of Colon, who ended up with four Ks in two innings of work. “I had a feeling that he wasn’t going to come out like he did [Thursday], but he did gut it out.
“He did a really good job of getting out of that jam he had in the first inning. And I told him, ‘You’ve got to challenge.’ And he did. He ended up challenging, and he got out of that jam. That was key.”
His offense rewarded him in a big way.
Henry Chevalier and Knoxx Daniels hit back-to-back singles to start an inning in which Pittsfield went on to send 25 hitters to the plate.
Caleb Tierney brought in the game’s first run when he worked a bases-loaded walk. The next hitter, St. John, the 11th in Pittsfield’s lineup, ripped a single to the right side to score a pair of runs.
Tierney, the No. 10 hitter, later doubled, St. John had another hit, and No. 12 hitter Josiah Rice went 1-for-1 with two runs scored in an echo of Pittsfield’s first win in the district tournament.
“The second half again,” Stracuzzi said. “The bottom of the order, putting the ball in play. Key base hits at certain times, putting the bunt down when we needed it, so little things like that again. And I preach, coach [Kevin] Stannard preaches the same thing: We do the little things and good things will happen.”
They kept happening for Pittsfield in that second inning, when Jax Stodden supplied a two-run single and 10 different Pittsfield batters earned walks against five different Adams-Cheshire pitchers before Hudson Ziter picked up the final outs on a bounce back to the mound and a strikeout.
Adams-Cheshire then rallied for three runs in the top of the third.
Logan O’Neil and Oliver Singer drew back-to-back walks to get things started. Joey Milesi hit a two-run single, and Caden Stump drove in a run.
But the hill proved too high to climb for Adams-Cheshire, which ended the tournament with a record of 2-2.
Pittsfield, which won both of its games at the District 1 tournament, gets a few days off to get ready for its home opener in the sectionals.
“What we’ll do is take [Monday] off,” Stracuzzi said. “It’s well needed, because we’ve been going almost every day. And we’ll get ready for Thursday’s game at Deming. That should be a good time.
“We’re at our home field, so we’ll feel comfortable, and we’ll see what happens. But I’m confident with this group of kids, very confident. They’re a loose group, which is good.”
Photos from this game here.
