By Rich Bevensee

Youth baseball coaches face a mountain of challenges during winter conditioning as they prepare their teams for the spring season. It must have been a whole different task for the Jersey Storm 10U coaching staff to translate the lofty expectations of a preseason poll to their young ballplayers.

There is just no telling how a 10-year old will handle that kind of pressure.

By all accounts it seems Nigel Archibald and his Storm staff have done an exceptional job preparing their players, who began the season ranked No. 1 among New Jersey 10U programs by travelballrankings.com. 

Storm batters pounded the ball all weekend and sailed through the King Of The Diamond tournament unbeaten through four games. The crowning moment arrived in a 9-4 victory over previously unbeaten Deep Run Blue of Perkasie, Pa., in the 10U championship game on Sunday at Diamond Nation in Flemington.

“If we’re in Jersey, we’re supposed to win,” Archibald said. “That’s how we practice, and we expect a lot of them.”

“We were really anxious before the weekend but once we won a couple games we felt pretty good,” said tournament MVP Michael Caruso, who failed to reach base just one time in 11 plate appearances this weekend.

For the tournament Caruso went 6-for-7 with two triples, two doubles, four walks and eight runs scored. In the final he went 2-for-3 with a double. The Storm owned a one-run lead before Caruso kick-started a four-run fifth inning with an RBI single.

“We did a lot of work this winter with getting stronger mechanics,” Caruso said. “We worked on getting contact and some power, too.”

The Storm, which outscored four tournament opponents 37-10, defeated the Whitpain Warriors, 10-0, Finest 10U, 12-4, and the Diamond Jacks 10U, 6-2, to finish unbeaten in pool play.

Deep Run came into the final with a 3-0 record after beating the Flores Baseball Braves, 12-4, PA Rebels Stocker, 15-9, and the Connecticut Rangers, 15-6. In the PA Rebels game, Deep Run entered its final at bat in the sixth trailing 9-5 and scored 10 unanswered runs with two outs. The pool victory over the previously unbeaten Diamond Jacks allowed Deep Run a berth in the final.

Deep Run boasted a two-time Diamond Nation MVP on its bench, assistant coach Connor Murray, a sophomore at Pennridge High. Murray took home MVP honors at the 2023 14U Spring Fever tournament and later that season at the 15U Fall Brawl.

In the final, the Storm bounced back from a 3-0 deficit to tie the game in the second inning on an RBI double by Kyle Piperi. In the third, Caruso led off with a double and scored the go-ahead run on Alessandro Alberto’s opposite field triple to the right field corner. The Storm added an insurance run when Fabian Echevarry scored on Piperi’s fly ball to left to make it 5-3.

Michael Caruso of Jersey Storm was named MVP of the 10U King Of The Diamond tournament.

Deep Run sliced the deficit to one in the top of the fourth when Chase Roller hit a leadoff single, stole second, advanced to third on a groundout and scored on a wild pitch.

The Storm wiped away much of Deep Run’s hopes for a dramatic comeback with that four-run fifth. 

Caruso began the rally with an RBI double to left center, and he later scored on a wild pitch. Aryan Vega came up with one out and smacked an inside-the-park, two-run home run to make it a 9-4 game. 

Alberto pitched the first 3⅔ innings for the Storm before Caruso slammed the door on Deep Run for the next two innings, allowing only one baserunner among the seven batters he faced. Mati Gouliamis recorded a strikeout for the final out of the game.

“I give him a lot of tough love, so this was a good first weekend for him,” Archibald said of Caruso. “I’m happy for him. He’s always a middle of the lineup guy and we need him to be great.”

For Deep Run, Roller and Levi Moyer recorded the only hits of the game, and Jackson States had an RBI groundout. 

Mack McKenna pitched two innings for Deep Run and was relieved by Brad Henry (one inning), Lucas Herrmann (1⅓) and States (⅔).