Annabellas House of Mozzarella

 The 12U All-Stars staged the most improbable of comebacks on Tuesday night, erasing a five run deficit with a nine run 6^th inning to down Carlstadt 10-6 at Lyndhurst’s Patsy DeLoy Field.  With the win, the Devils grabbed the top spot on the Pool B leader board with a halfway mark of 3-0.                   The contest rapidly took on the tenor of a pitchers’ duel as Carlstadt southpaw Kyle Post and WR’s hard-throwing Dom Gadaleta stymied the opposition for the first two innings. Carlstadt broke through with their first hit of the evening in the bottom of the third, and went on to capitalize on Gadaleta’s control struggles by drawing four walks and stealing the plate three times. Reliever Tommy Luizzi came out of the pen to end the inning with a K, but not in time to prevent the Wildcats’ 4^th dish theft of the frame. After a scoreless fourth inning for both sides, the 12U’s trailed 4-0.            Luizzi finally got the visitors on the board with a solo opposite field dinger in the top of the fifth. Pesky Carlstadt then parlayed two hits and yet another swipe of the plate into 2 insurance runs, whipping their fans into a frenzy and carrying a 6-1 advantage into the Devils’ final at-bat.  As Yogi Berra famously said however “ It ain’t over ‘til it’s over”………..      As Senior nervously watched from the booth upstairs, Anthony Trano, Jr. led off the WR/Moonachie sixth. With his teammates chanting away, Trano patiently let Carlstadt reliever Michael Bolwell unravel, drawing a 5-pitch walk. CF Ryan Morrone and 2B Jonathan Menge did likewise, and even the ensuing Wildcat timeout did nothing to alleviate the home team’s mound woes. Dom Gadaleta got a measure of revenge, drawing a free pass with bases loaded to make it 6-2 , and Carlstadt went to the bullpen again.           Luizzi greeted the Carlstadt closer with an RBI base hit, and a second run scored on a wild throw home (6 to 4…..). 1B/3B Anthony Latoracca’s grounder to short found itself thrown into the first base dirt, scoring Gadaleta and Luizzi (6 to 6….). After swiping second, Latoracca was driven home by the HUGE  RBI single of catcher Chris Affuso to give the Devils their first lead of the game at 7-6, silencing the Wildcat cheering section for good.  Special runner Kyle Dressel replaced Affuso on the basepaths, and after taking second on a passed ball, was sent the remainder of the way around courtesy of LF Michael Perez ( he of the red cleats and the Nike bat!). Morrone made his second at-bat of the inning a memorable one, punctuating the comeback with a 2-run homer to put the 12U’s in control 10-6.   Luizzi went on to post a 1-2-3 bottom of the sixth, earning the win with a 3  1/3 inning, two-hit performance……  Next up for the Devils will be East Rutherford (0-2) on Thursday 6/30.