Knights end exciting season just short of the title

By Jason Eisenberg
jeisenberg@riverdalepress.com

A successful and exciting 2009 summer season came to an abrupt end last week for the Kingsbridge Knights 12-and-under little league travel team, with a 5-1 loss to West Lewis County, Washington, in the Cal Ripken World Series quarterfinal round.

The result was something of an upset, considering West Lewis County had won only one of its four previous games in the pool play round.

“They [Washington] just got hot at the right time, but it also kind of makes the loss even tougher knowing that we had so many chances in that game and it could have been us there at the end,” said Kingsbridge head coach Mike Navarro. “But, it was still a great experience and something that all of us — the coaches and the players — will remember for the rest of our lives.”

West Lewis followed up their victory against Kingsbridge with two more wins and the championship.

Washington jumped out to a big lead early in the contest, smashing a pair of homers and scoring a total of five runs in the first three innings. The Knights would get their lone run of the game in the bottom of the third, when a bases-loaded walk to first baseman Lenny Ortiz brought Josh Fisher home. However, the next two Kingsbridge batters would strike out, leaving three runners stranded.

Unfortunately, this became a recurring theme for the Knights throughout the rest of the evening.

Kingsbridge ace Adam De la Cruz took the mound to replace starter Drew Semler and kept his team in the game with yet another brilliant pitching performance, shutting out the opposition for three-plus innings, while also striking out nine batters.

However, the usually clutch Knights offense could not find a way to get a key hit. The team loaded the bases in both the fifth and sixth innings but couldn’t bring any more runs home. In total, Kingsbridge left a whopping 12 runners stranded on base in the contest.

Still, the disappointing defeat can’t cast a pall over everything the team accomplished over the previous two months. The Knights won the District 23 title, claimed the Middle-Atlantic Regional crown for the second straight year and became the first Kingsbridge Little League team in history to advance to the World Series, even if it wasn’t the more famous one in Williamsport, Pa.

“The Bronx community should be very proud of this Kingsbridge team for everything it accomplished, and for representing New York City proudly,” assistant coach Lenny Ortiz wrote in an e-mail to The Riverdale Press. “From over 600 teams in the 12U division, we were one of the last 10 to make it to the World Series.”

De la Cruz in particular that had a breakthrough performance on a national scale at the Winchester, Mass.-hosted event. He was so good, in fact, that Washington intentionally walked him in three of his four plate appearances in the final game.

“This kid is just amazing. Every time he went out to bat or to pitch it seemed like something special would happen,” coach Navarro said of his star pitcher and shortstop, who was named the most valuable player of the entire Cal Ripken World Series tournament. “He showed he could play with anybody and now people from all over the country are talking about him.”

Coach Navarro said he expects most of the current roster to stay intact as the team moves up to face new challenges next year in the 13-year-old division.

This is part of the August 27, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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