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Sports

West Deptford Eliminated from Eastern Regional

The hosts couldn't overcome an ugly first inning in a 3-1 loss to Pennsylvania Monday afternoon.

The Senior League Eastern Regional lost its biggest attraction Monday afternoon as host West Deptford saw a sloppy first inning lead to its elimination.

Pennsylvania took advantage of a pair of errors and some questionable decision making in the bottom of the first inning to score two runs and never looked back, defeating West Deptford, 3-1, at Union Field.

Pennsylvania–which also defeated West Deptford in the opening day of the tournament–earned the right to face Connecticut later in the day.

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West Deptford fell behind early when it couldn't handle the pressure applied by Pennsylvania on the bases. With runners on second and third and two outs Trent Grove took a massive lead off second, drawing the attention of starting pitcher Danny Riley.

Riley started towards Grove, leading Nick O’Brien (who was on third) to think about going home. Riley then fired to third, but his throw was off-target, allowing O’Brien to score and Grove to advance to third.

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Jake Granteed then worked a walk, putting runners on first and third. Granteed proceeded to get himself into a rundown, but by the time the ball was delivered to second he had slid in safely. Meanwhile, Grove had broke for home and the throw was late and wide, giving Pennsylvania a 2-0 lead.

“The kids are better than that, but they attacked us and made plays,” West Deptford manager Marty Roselli said. “It was a tightly-contested game, and they just outplayed us a little bit today.”

To Riley’s credit, he didn’t allow the rough start to throw him off his game. He settled in and allowed just three runs on four hits over 5 2/3 innings.

“He pitched his heart out again for us,” Roselli said. “We have asked him to close out a couple games for us and we have asked him to start, and he’s done the job every time we have asked him. He got behind a couple of batters, but he came back and overall we got outs. It’s just a shame.”

West Deptford finally got to opposing pitcher Granteed in the fifth inning, thanks to some sloppy play by Pennsylvania.

Chris Dellaquilla started the inning by reaching second base thanks to a throwing error by the third baseman. He moved over to third on a groundout, and came in to score when the opposing catcher threw the ball away on a pickoff attempt to third.

West Deptford looked to be in business when Brendon Glass worked a two-out walk and Tom Jakubowski singled to right to put runners on the corners with two out. However, Jakubowski–who hit a game-winning grand slam Sunday–was picked off of first to end the threat.

West Deptford had one more chance in the seventh, when it got a leadoff walk from Keith Wallace, but the next three hitters were retired to close the game.

Though the tournament did not last as long as West Deptford would have liked, the team can still hang its hat on its undefeated run through District 15, as well as a decade full of Little league highlights.

“For a lot of the kids, it was their last Little League game,” Roselli said. “They won’t be playing any more Little League, and I told them to think back on their career. This group of kids has won four district championships.

"It’s tough, this type of game, losing like this. We feel like we could have won, but now they are off to bigger and better things.”

NOTE: The championship game has been rescheduled for Thursday at 10 a.m. If a second game is needed, it's slated to begin at 1 p.m.

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