Lovie’s Frosty Twist Tournament Recap
The 2020 Wiff is Life League season kicked off on Sunday. Opening Day had it all from fast pitch to medium pitch, high scoring to low scoring battles, extra innings to run rules. At the end of it all, Steve Keelon and Chris Sarnowski, tabbed the Assassins, went 6-0 to win the whole thing.
The day began with pool play, which featured each of the five teams squaring off against each other once. The teams would then be ranked 1-5 in wins. The top four would then duke it out in a single elimination bracket for the tournament title. Surprisingly, there were no ties in the standings after pool play. The seeding going into bracket play was 1. Assassins 2. Plumbers 3. Flamingos 4. Vandals 5. LumberKings.
Bracket Play
Championship: Assassins (2) - Flamingos (0)
Chris Sarnowski versus Austin Berger, a pitchers duel at its finest. Sarnowski struck out eight over five innings and scattered two hits. Those hits were both doubles, one coming off the bat of Jordan Castelli and the other Gino Joseph. Berger dealt 4+ innings, also allowed two hits, and struck out seven. Chris Sarnowski ended the tournament with a walk off home run in the bottom of the fifth, after Keelon drew a walk.
Bracket 1 vs. 4: Assassins (12) - Flamingos (2)
Nate Morris walked around two runs in the first inning, before handing the ball over to Rob Licht. Licht evened up the score with a two run homer in the top of the second. However, the Vandals pitching hurt them again. The Assassins brought around nine runs in the second inning, and one in the third to make it a mercy rule victory. Sarnowski pitched for the Assassins, he allowed two runs on one hit and struck out six.
Bracket 2 vs. 3: Plumbers (1) - Flamingos (4)
Jordan Castelli hit a three run homer in the top of the second to make it 4-0 Flamingos, and that is all they would need. Gino Joseph halted the Plumbers offense. He allowed one hit and struck out nine. The lone Plumbers run came on a Jake Davey double that featured two missed peg attempts on his continuous run around the bases.
View Box Scores and Video for all games here.
**all box scores are in, but some video is still getting uploaded**
Assassins
Chris Sarnowski pitched all 38 innings for his team, the Assassins, on the day. He allowed just four hits over the four pool play games, including two no-hitters. The first no-hitter came against the Vandals in an eight inning duel, the second a three inning no hitter against the Plumbers in a game with the one seed on the line.
Sarnowski also was dominant from the batter's box, with a tournament best 25 hits, 12 of which of the long ball variety. His teammate, Steve Keelon was right there with him. Keelon belted 10 home runs and had a .381 average on the day.
Plumbers
The Plumbers surprised some folks in pool play. They rolled past the LumberKings, 8-2, took advantage of three medium pitch innings against the Flamingos to beat them 8-5, and outlasted the Vandals 7-6 in an extra inning contest. All before running into the Assassins in their final pool play game, which they lost in 3 innings, 11-0.
Zach Rohaley continued his dominating medium pitch style. He threw 23 innings, struck out 16, and posted the best ERA of any medium speed pitcher, at 3.70. Davey got one game in from the rubber and it was going okay through two innings, but the Assassins exploded for 10 runs in the third to earn a run rule the game. Davey hit .425 with eight home runs and a tournament best three doubles. Meanwhile, Rohaley led the squad in long balls, with 11, and hit .378.
Flamingos
The Flamingos earned the three seed, as they fell behind the eight ball early on in the day, but made a strong bounce back. In the opener, Chris Sarnowski got to Gino Joseph, he blasted five home runs to take down the Flamingos 7-0. In the second game, the Flamingos chose to have Jordan Castelli throw medium pitch in the first three innings. That decision came back to bite them, as the Plumbers got out to a lead and the Flamingos offense couldn’t fight back. Game two went to the Plumbers 8-5. The Flamingos rattled off back-to-back wins to end pool play, 4-0 over the Vandals and 14-1 over the LumberKings.
Catelli and Berger had mirror-like numbers in the batter's box. Each hitting .321 with a double and four homers. Joseph led the team in average at .345 and had three home runs. From the rubber, Joseph had 15 innings of work and went 2-1 with a 2.33 ERA and 25 strikeouts. Berger got the start in just one game, and that was the championship. He saw work in four more innings over two pool play games. Over his 8+ innings he struck out 16, allowed just two hits, and had a 1.15 ERA.
Vandals
The Vandals started play with an eight inning 1-0 fastpitch loss to the Assassins. Nate Morris had the ball for that game and struck out seven, allowing just one hit. Ultimately, that hit brought around the shootout runner to win it for the Assassins. The Vandals got bested by the Flamingos, 4-0, who scored all the runs in the first inning and shut down the Vandal offense. Another extra inning game for the Vandals came against the Plumbers, this time a medium pitch battle. It took eight innings to decide, but the Plumbers hit a walk off single to win 7-6. In the final game of the pool play round, the Vandals got in the win column and secured their spot in the bracket, but it wasn’t easy. They got down early to the LumberKings, but came back to win it 6-5.
Morris hit .364 with one home run on the day. Licht belted four homers and posted a .259 average. Sullivan was at .261 with one dong. On the pitcher’s plate, Sullivan garnered the most innings. He threw 12, all of which medium pitch, had a 5.00 ERA and struck out 10. Licht toed the rubber for 6+ innings, his first appearance against the Flamingos he threw five innings of one-hit ball, but in his one inning against the Assassins they got to him.
LumberKings
The LumberKings were in it until the last pitch of the day. Their first three games saw a 8-2 loss and two mercy rule defeats, one by the Assassins and one by the Flamings. The last game of the pool play round for them was against the Vandals, who were also 0-3 coming into the game. Winner would move on to the bracket. The LumberKings got out to an early 5-0 lead, but the Vandals battled back to take the lead. In the last inning, the LumberKings had the bases loaded, down by one run, with one out, but couldn’t capitalize and were eliminated.
Justin Davey led the tournament in average with a .529 mark and had two doubles. Teammates, Jarrod Ross and Frank Fortunato hit .235 and .125, respectively. Davey threw most of the innings for the squad (10), Ross threw five, and Fortunato two. All three threw medium pitch, and had a team ERA of 10.29.
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