Williamson prevails, 3-2, in lesson-filled title game

First Place Bank lost coach Frank Pasquale to cancer
during the season.

By JOHN KOVACH

VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF

YOUNGSTOWN — Two Little League teams learned valuable lessons Friday in the championship game of the Mill Creek Junior Baseball League at Kramer Field between two-time defending champion First Place Bank and last year’s runner-up, Williamson Home Improvement.

First Place, which lost its manager, Frank Pasquale, to cancer in mid-season and had been fighting adversity ever since then to make the playoffs, learned that you cannot always win and that sometimes setbacks can come in bunches.

Meanwhile, the Williamson Home Improvement team learned that perseverance coupled with good pitching and defense wins games, as Manager Rob Adams’ team scored early and then held off First Place Bank, 3-2, to win the Mill Creek championship for 11-12-year-old players.

Giving Williamson (18-7) all the offense it needed were Jaret Spayd, who had a two-run single in the first inning, and Tony Adams, who had a run-scoring single in the second inning.

Starting pitcher Nate Derenzis, an 11-year-old, went the first five innings to get the mound win with last-inning relief help from Dawan Britt, who got the save.

First Place Bank (16-9) starter Ralph Naples, who pitched the first two innings, took the loss.

The Williamson team was helped by eight walks.

O’Neill: Lose with honor

Acting manager John O’Neill, who succeeded Pasquale as First Place Bank’s skipper, told his team after the loss that, “You have to lose with honor. It’s all a part of life. You are not always going to win.”

Pasquale, whose son, Zack, plays first base for First Place Bank, also had coached the team to the Mill Creek title last year, its second in a row.

After the game, the team observed a moment of silence for Frank Pasquale.

O’Neill said that Pasquale, if it had been him talking to the team, would have said to the players: “If you are going to lose, [then] lose with honor. He was real big on sportsmanship. He told his players to congratulate an [opposing] player if he caught their hit ball.”

O’Neill said the team has had a tough time coping with Pasquale’s death while trying to make the playoffs and win the title.

“They had a tough season losing a coach and a friend, but they kept coming to play. It was a tragic loss [of coach Pasquale].”

Meanwhile Adams, in his first year managing Williamson Home Improvement after succeeding Jim Nagy, said that his players were able to win after losing last year because they played as a team.

“Every player was part of a unit and each had a role to play,” said Adams. “Defense and good quality pitching preserved the win for this team.”

Pasquale was ‘thoughtful man’

Adams said that he knew Pasquale for about eight years.

“He was a very thoughtful man,” he said.

“He had nothing but good things to say about anyone.”

There is no question that this was a high-quality Little League performance played with talented players, sound coaching, much strategy and outstanding sportsmanship, which prompted coach Jamie Ferguson of Williamson to say: “This is the way baseball is supposed to be played.”

Williamson scored all three of its runs in the first two innings on Spayd’s two-run single in the first inning and Adams’ run-scoring bases-loaded single in the second.

But Williamson blew a run on Adams’ single when another baserunner also had scored but the run was nullified because he failed to tag third base. Williamson loaded the bases again in the second, but couldn’t score.

In the third inning, Derenzis got a strikeout with the bases loaded to get First Place Bank out of a jam.

First Place rallied with single runs in the fourth and fifth inning, but also blew a run in the fourth on an infraction of the rules.

No head-first sliding

That mistake occurred when Matt Barandovich drilled what would have been a two-run home run to drive in Kevin Holden who had singled, but Barandovich slid head-first at home which is not allowed by the rules and which nullified the run.

Then Williamson’s infield pulled a double play to end the uprising.

Then First Place got its single run in the fifth when Cameron Blair singled, went to second on a passed ball and scored on Jared Wiesen’s single.

But after Blair stole second base, Brad Bailey rapped a long flyout to right field to end the rally. Mike DiFabio made a nice catch of the ball in right.

Williamson had a rally going in the fifth with a man on third base, but Wiesen struck out the final batter to end the threat.

Then in the sixth, with Dawan Britt replacing Derenzis on the mound, Britt got the first batter on an infield flyout but Barandivich got to first on an error.

And after Barandovich was forced out at second on a ground ball, Britt induced a flyout to end the game and get the save.

Wiesen finished with two singles for First Place Bank.