JENKINS TWP. — Little League games are supposed to last six innings, but the Township all-stars haven’t been following that rule.
After wiping out two opponents in pool play, Township took care of another quickly on Wednesday evening with a 13-0, four-inning victory over Plains in a District 16 Little League Major Baseball semifinal game.
The victory came after Township defeated Wilkes-Barre 16-0 in three innings and Hanover 14-0 in four innings in pool play.
Township took any suspense out of the game with an 11-run first inning. It will play Greater Pittston Area for the D16 championship on Monday at the Duryea Little League. The game will start 30 minutes after the completion of the D31 title game, at approximately 8 p.m. GPA defeated Wilkes-Barre, 10-0, in four innings in the other semifinal.
Township, which is a merger of Pittston Township and Jenkins Township Little Leagues, pounded out eight hits in the first inning, with Jake Aftewicz hitting a pair of two-run homers, Brycen Martin hitting a two-run homer and Aiden Lynn knocking in two runs with a single.
“When we divided up our teams to start the year, we made a focus on every team getting pitching,” Township manager Paul McGarry said. “We wanted to see good pitching every game and we did. So we were seeing some of the best pitching all year long throughout the regular season.
“When our team came together, it was nothing new for us to see that kind of pitching.”
The first-inning outburst obscured somewhat an excellent performance by Martin, the Township pitcher. He threw a no-hitter with eight strikeouts. There was a judgment call on a hard-hit grounder in the fourth that was eventually ruled an error.
Plains had just three base runners. Ben Cielski reached on a walk in the second, Christian Blight got on via the error and Philip Allabaugh got on in the fourth in a fielder’s choice. Allabaugh was the only Plains player to move to second after a wild pitch.
“We really have three or four number-ones,” McGarry said of the pitching. “Two of the guys haven’t had much work, but going forward we’re going to need them. Our pitching has been lights out. We had one (error) tonight, but up until then we hadn’t made an error in the field.”
Martin finished off Plains with two strikeouts as the game clocked in at a little over an hour. That included a delay for a blinding reflection coming off a side window of a vehicle parking beyond the center field fence. A blanket solved the issue.
As for that first inning, Township’s Drew Cisney started it with a single up the middle and Martin reached on a fielder’s choice. McGarry then doubled down the left-field line to make it 2-0. Aftewicz followed with the first of his homers for a 4-0 lead.
Plains got two quick outs, but Township then scored seven more times for the 11-0 lead.
McGarry, who was 3-for-3 with three runs and three RBI, knocked in a run in the third with his third double of the game. He scored on Elijah Barr’s single for the final run.
