Burkett Boys ALL-Stars

The final score read 12 runs on 11 hits with 8 strikeouts and 3 walks for Schwartz while Burkett had 6 runs on 8 hits with 8 strikeouts and 4 walks, but those stats don’t tell the whole story. Schwartz’s bats boomed to a huge 9-0 lead after three and one half innings as Schwartz banged out seven hits including two long home runs. Mike St. Martin started on the mound for Burkett and went 3 and 2/3 innings and had six strikeouts but the first four Schwartz batters proved to be extremely tough to stop. But the Burkett team never gave up, even as the crowd thought “Oh, Mercy.” In the bottom of the third, Burkett tried to claw its way back into the game. Tejean Pluverge led off with a single to center, followed by a walk to Matt Higgins. Mike St. Martin hit a single to left to drive in Tejean and Burkett was on the board. Brian Reynolds walked to load the bases and Jay O’Brien was hit by a pitch forcing in a second run. Matt Ball hit an infield single and a third run scored. Then Pat Sullivan hit another infield single driving in a fourth run, but Jay was thrown out at home as he tried to score a fifth run. Ugh, that hurt and two men were left on base. But Burkett had cut the score to 9-4 and Burkett was still alive and Schwartz knew it. With Brian Reynolds now on the mound, Schwartz added a run in the top of the fifth to go up 10-4 and in the bottom of the fifth Kurt Sabacinski hit a two run homer to cut Schwartz’s lead to 10-6. Unfortunately Burkett left two men on base in the fifth just as they did in the fourth. Still Burkett's hopes were high. Yet during the game, the Schwartz pitcher struck out a Burkett batter for the last out in four of six innings and Burkett stranded seven base runners. Schwartz added two insurance runs in the sixth and the final score was 12-6 and Burkett’s dreams of a district championship were over. Schwartz advances to play Sterling for the championship. At bat, Matt Ball had three infield singles for Burkett, Tejean Pluverge had two singles and Kurt Sabacinski had his third home run of the districts, otherwise the bats were pretty silent. Mike St. Martin and Pat Sullivan did have a single each. In the field Burkett made a couple of nice plays. From right field, Kurt threw a runner out trying to go to third on a hit and Pat Sullivan robbed a home run by catching a fly ball that was about to go out of the park in left field. Otherwise, the Burkett outfielders were seen chasing the hard hit balls of the Schwartz batters. The outfielders did their best to get the balls in quickly but when you keep hearing the dings of the ball hitting the outfield signs, it can get pretty disheartening and the infield struggled with the hard hit balls too. So Burkett doesn’t advance this year and there will be no repeat New England championship, still the 2003 Burkett Little League Boys All Stars managed to win four games in district play before being eliminated by a strong Schwartz team. Could Burkett have won? Maybe, but it is extremely hard to come back from a nine run deficit. Overall the team batted .353 in the districts and had an on base percentage of .433. The leading hitters were Matt Ball, Tejean, Pat, Chris Talbot, Matt Higgins, and Kurt. The defense made some excellent plays and some errors. The base running was aggressive, but not always attentive. The boys hit ten home runs, four by Tejean, three by Kurt, and one each by Pat, Shane, and Jay. The boys were in both games they lost even after giving up big leads early. They never said die and trailed in every game except the Tris Speaker game (a shut out by Burkett) and came back to win three of the games and made the other two interesting. You can bet Schwartz is happy Burkett is gone. Any comments? email them to me at wobrien@worcester.edu Thanks for the memories.