The Bombers’ Hunter Borawski had a big game, going 2-for-2 with a walk and a run.
By Rich Bevensee
The 15U Muckdogs Baseball Club of Egg Harbor Township may not have been enjoying its best day at the plate, but Everett Marmo and Dominic Sausto were making sure it would be no day at the beach for their opponent, either.
Marmo and Sausto, who were pressed into relief for the Muckdogs, were two big reasons why the Beach Bombers of Lido Beach, Long Island had immense difficulty pushing runs across.
Once Sausto retired the final Bomber batter with the tying and go-ahead runs aboard, the Muckdogs had secured a 5-4 pool play victory in Week 2 of the Summer Finale Powered by Victus at Diamond Nation in Flemington.
In their six combined innings of work, it was the ability of Marmo and Sausto to keep baserunners from scoring which was the key to the game. The Bombers stranded six runners in scoring position because they went 0-for-7 in that situation against the two gritty Muckdog righties.
“One of the things we work on with pitchers is that once you get runners on base to not be so preoccupied with the runners on base,” Muckdogs coach Tom Sausto said. “Kids, generally speaking, can’t help it. There’s going to be a level of focus. They’re either going to focus on the runners and not the batter, or forget the runners and focus on the batter. I would prefer the second. Our guys were excellent in that situation.”
Thanks to an earlier 3-2 win over LevelUp Prospects Elite, the Muckdogs swept their Saturday doubleheader and earned the fourth seed for the 15U playoffs. They have a semifinal game at 11 a.m. on Sunday against an opponent to be determined.
The loss gave the Bombers a split of their Saturday doubleheader but they still earned the third seed for the playoffs, thanks to a 7-1 decision over Hudson Valley Select earlier in the day. The Bombers will face sixth-seeded South Jersey Young Guns Navy in the quarterfinals at 9 a.m.
The Beach Bombers owned a 2-1 lead after the first inning but couldn’t seem to generate enough offense and build a cushion against Marmo, who entered after the fourth batter of the game.
“I’m coming in and trying to throw strikes, trying anything I can to get out of that inning for my team,” said Marmo, a 6-foot rising sophomore at St. Augustine Prep in Richland, whose fastball touched 83 Saturday. “I have a fastball, curveball, changeup and splitter but I just throw hard. That’s my thing. I don’t throw many offspeeds. Most teams can’t touch my fastball so there’s no need to use my other pitches.”
Marmo kept the Bombers at bay into the bottom of the fourth when his teammates began flooding the basepaths.
The Muckdogs’ Everett Marmo slides home safely in the fourth inning.
Joshua Kurtz reached on a single and scored on a balk. Henry Bogle singled and eventually scored on a wild pitch. The big blow came off the bat of No. 10 hitter Brayden Mason, who slammed a two-out, two run double into the right field corner for a 5-2 Muckdogs lead.
The Bombers scraped two runs off Marmo in the top of the fifth and he gave way to Sausto, who walked his first batter and struck out the next two to escape the inning with the tying run at third.
In the top of the sixth, and with no time remaining in the game, the Bombers had runners at second and third with two out when Sausto got the last batter looking at strike three.
Sausto, a rising sophomore at Egg Harbor Twp., said he chiefly threw his fastball and mixed in a few of his curveballs, sinkers and sliders.
“I love that situation,” Sausto said. “I’m thinking that I gotta throw hard, gotta mix in a couple good offspeed pitches and not let down my team. I wasn’t thinking about the runners too much. It really depends on how close the game is. When it’s a one-run game, runner on first base? I don’t worry about him too much. If he’s on second or third, it’s something you have to look out for. You have to take good looks, mix it up and make sure he’s not going.”
Marmo pitched four innings and surrendered two runs on three hits and two walks with one strikeout. Sausto threw 1⅔ scoreless innings and struck out four with no walks or hits given up.
The Beach Bombers pitching staff held the Muckdogs to just three hits, but yielded three runs on two wild pitches and a balk. Bombers starter Hunter Borawski gave up four runs, only one of which was earned, in 3⅓ innings on two hits and two walks with three strikeouts. Borawski was the only player for either team to have multiple hits, as he went 2-for-2 with a walk and a run scored.
Ethan Kaufman threw 1⅔ innings fof the Bombers and yielded one run on one hit and two walks with two strikeouts.
The Beach Bombers are a four-year old program which has grown exponentially in that time. They began with one team and now support 17 age group teams and have already won a handful of tournament championships, according to coach Eric Krywe.