13U Knights Coach Joe Palumbo on the Gameday USA tournament this weekend pic.twitter.com/WhEhaaJm1I
— Axcess Sports (@AxcessSports) June 30, 2019
In a 13U semifinals match up this afternoon at Newbridge Park, Aces Baseball came out of the gate firing on all cylinders, which was the difference as they advanced to the championship game with an 8-0 victory.
After firing a scoreless top of the first inning–working around a leadoff double by Cristino Tufano–their batters displayed an advanced approach at the plate and took advantage of some control issues from the Knights starting pitcher. A leadoff single by Aidan Gallagher followed by a walk put two runners on base. A tailor-made double play was booted to load the bases with no out. Consecutive bases loaded walks made it 2-0 in favor of Aces Baseball. Mike Gags hits a sac fly to make it 3-0 and an RBI double by Cole Holdock opened up a 4-0 lead, which extended to 5-0 on an RBI single by Michael Scozz.
The Knights threatened to score in the second inning on a one-out triple by Michael Brocco but a strikeout and a ground out ended the threat.
Aces went back to work in the second inning, adding a pair of runs thanks to an RBI single by Travis Carlucci and a steal of home on the back end of a double steal.
The Knights were able to keep them off the board in the third and fourth innings, but a two-out RBI double in the fifth was the eighth run, in which the run-rule went into effect.
The game was briefly in delay due to an incredibly strong gusts of wind which made it nearly impossible to play. This effected the game for a short period of times as the pitchers needed to work in between strong gusts of wind to pitch.
Aces Baseball moved on to the championship to face Dream Chasers.
