Colts Reign 10U Champions of Suburban League

Written by Irene Dedio

The Kinnelon 10U Colts travel baseball team won the 2013 North Jersey Suburban Summer League Championship last week, beating Midland Park 15-9. 

After a winning spring season in which the 10U team advanced all the way to the Cal Ripken District Championship game — ultimately losing a heartbreaking, extra-inning game against Wayne 4-3 — the Colts continued to play their hearts out this summer, earning another spot in the playoff bracket of the North Jersey Suburban League.

The summer championship run began in Glen Rock. After surrendering an early run to the lead-off batter of the game, Jonah Berman (who pitched 4 innings with 7 strike-outs) and John McGowan (who pitched 2 innings with 1 strikeout) combined to shut out Glen Rock 6-1 in the opening round of the NJSBL summer league playoffs. The Colts offense put 4 runs on the board in the second inning and 2 more in the 6th inning. Gavin Freda and Evan stewart both had triples, with Stewart picking up 2 RBIs;  Jack Heckler and Trey McDonald both walked or hit safely in all of their at-bats.

The Colts then advanced to play Allendale. Trey McDonald was the starting pitcher, throwing 4 strong innings, striking out 5 and throwing 72 pitches; Allendale took advantage of a couple of early walks to jump out to a 3-1 lead after 3 innings. The Kinnelon Colts erupted for an inning maximum 8 runs (no outs) in the 4th inning in which all ten players batted and either walked or hit.   Jack Heckler, Nick Mondello, Gavin Freda, Sam Dedio and Trey McDonald all had hits.  Allendale was only able to push across one more run in the 5th inning of the game, while the Colts added four more runs in the top half of the 5th thanks to a hit by Evan Stewart and a 3-run homer by Trey McDonald. In addition to his two hits, Peter DiNicola came in to pitch the final two innings and gave up no earned runs — securing  the 13-4 win in which the Colts pitching only gave up 3 hits during the entire game. 

On the heels of the Allendale win, Kinnelon faced their final opponent, Midland Park. The Colts trailed out of the gate as Midland Park came out swinging, hitting 60 mph fastballs off the Colts starter Jonah Berman, who was undeterred after giving up 3 early runs. Berman then proceeded to retire 9 out of the next 10 batters, including 5 strikeouts, and gave his team a chance to get some runs back.  Berman also gave the opposing pitchers a tough time at the plate, earning 3 walks on the day. Evan Stewart opened the scoring for the Colts after getting a lead-off single and was driven home by clean-up batter Mitch Mauriello’s base hit in the first inning.  The Colts scored 5 runs in the bottom of the second inning thanks to a lead-off single by Gavin Freda and 2-out base hits by Nick Mondello and Sam Dedio — and never looked back. 

The Colts offense was firing on all cylinders in the 15-hit attack, led by Gavin Freda who went 2 for 3 with a double and Sam Dedio, who went 3 for 4 with a double. Nick Mondello, Shawn Charles and John McGowan all had great at-bats the entire game as they reached first base every plate appearance. William Castel drove in what proved to be the winning run in the 5th inning, followed by a 2-out double by John McGowan which provided some insurance runs for the Colts.  

Peter DiNicola pitched two innings and closed the win for the Colts as he fielded the final ground ball and threw to first baseman Sam Dedio to record the final out in the 15-9 victory.