Burkett Boys ALL-Stars

Front from left, Pat Sullivan, Matt Higgins, Brian Reynolds, Thad Kaliszewski, Mike St. Martin, Jay O’Brien, Second row, Manager Rich Ball, Kurt Sabacinski, Coach Rich St. Martin, Shane Omidi, Tejean Pluverge, Cory Loomer, Coach Wayne Loomer, Mike Piarulli, Coach Ed Sullivan, Matt Ball, Chris Talbot Welcome and please come by often for more information. For all the game summaries, please click on News. There are pictures posted in albums on the left and links to other great sites (like the Massachusetts state tournament LL page) in the link section. Check everything out and let us know what you think. For great action photos of the West Boylston game taken by Chris Yates please click here. The password is JBLL. Don't forget to sign the guestbook at the bottom of this page. The 2003 Jesse Burkett Little League Boys All-Stars are Matthew Ball Matthew Higgins Thad Kaliszewski Cory Loomer Jay O'Brien Shane Omidi Michael Piarulli Tejean Pluverge Brian Reynolds Kurt Sabacinski Michael St. Martin Patrick Sullivan Christopher Talbot Manager-Rich Ball Coach-Wayne Loomer Coach-Ed Sullivan Coach-Rich St.Martin

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.

Matt Ball pitched a gem of a game for Burkett, striking out ten batters, walking only one, giving up just four hits, and holding Jack Barry to just two runs as Burkett beat Barry 8-2 in the loser’s bracket setting up a showdown with Joe Schwartz for the right to advance to the District finals. With 10 strikeouts, Matt needed a little help and he got it all from his infield and catcher. Thad Kaliszewski looked superb at third base stopping just about everything that was hit his way. For the day, Thad had four assists on hard hit grounders, two each in the second and sixth innings. Matt Ball had two assists on ground balls hit back to the mound and Matt Higgins had an assist on a grounder to second and caught a pop up. Brian Reynolds caught at least three foul tips for strikeouts. That is it, 10 k's plus 7 ground ball outs plus a pop up equals 18 outs. Barry scored two runs in the top of the first to take a 2-0 lead, but Burkett came back to take the lead 3-2 thanks to a sacrifice fly RBI by Thad Kaliszewski in the first inning and two runs on hits by Matt Ball, Kurt Sabacinski, Tejean Pluverge, and Matt Higgins in the top of the third. Perhaps the most spectacular effort of the day occurred with Matt pitching in the third. Barry, behind by just one run, loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the third. The game could go either way here. No one had all the momentum. Matt proceeded to strike out the next three batters in a row to get out of the inning and preserve the lead and the momentum shifted. Then Burkett erupted in the fourth inning on hits by Matt Ball, Pat Sullivan, a walk to Kurt Sabacinski, and a two run home by Tejean Pluverge, his fourth in the districts, and an 7-2 lead for Burkett. Pat added a home run in the top of the sixth to push the score to 8-2. Pat ended up with three hits, a single, a double, and home run and was a joy to watch with his infectious enthusiastic play at shortstop. For Burkett, at the plate, Matt Ball had three hits, Tejean had two, and Matt Higgins had two. From a Burkett fan's perspective, you couldn't have asked for a much better game. This game had everything: solid pitching, timely hitting, good base running, excellent fielding, and a little bit of early doubt. Nice win boys. For game pictures, click here, click here, click here, click here and please be sure to sign our Guestbook (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

Some baseball wins are beautiful and feature solid pitching, solid fielding, heads up base running, and mental toughness. Other wins are just that, wins, you take the win and you move on with the expectation that things will improve tomorrow. Burkett’s 10-7 win over Tom Ash was the latter. Tom Ash just wouldn’t give up and Burkett made several misplays (in the field and on the bases) that kept Ash in the ball game right up to the very end, but eventually Burkett won and that is all that counts. Burkett remains alive. Ash took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, but Burkett came right back and tied it up in the bottom of the first on consecutive doubles by Pat Sullivan and Tejean Pluverge. Both teams featured solid defense and cut down the lead runner twice and neither team scored in the second inning, but in the third inning Ash went up 3-1. Then the Burkett bats came alive in the bottom of the third and Burkett answered with eight runs to take a 9-3 lead and the game looked like a rout. But it wasn’t. In the big third inning, Kurt Sabacinski led the way with a three run home run to give Burkett a 4-3 lead, then Mike Piarulli, Matt Higgins, and Chris Talbot all singled to load the bases. Brian Reynolds walked to force a run in and Matt Ball drove in two runs with a double and Pat Sullivan drove in two more with another double and Burkett seemed to be coasting. But Tom Ash wouldn’t give up as Ash scored one in the fourth, two in the fifth, and one in the sixth, and you can be sure there were lots of fans (and probably players and coaches) who thought the game was well in hand in the third, but it wasn’t. On offense, Burkett banged out 12 hits, the same number as Ash. Matt Higgins had three solid hits to lead Burkett while Matt Ball, Pat Sullivan, and Chris Talbot had two hits each, and Kurt’s home run was huge. Pat Sullivan pitched all six innings for Burkett and did the job when he had to while the Burkett fielders and base runners were having an off day. Burkett did make some good plays. Brian Reynolds blocked home plate and made a put-out and saved an important run in the sixth. Tejean Pluverge and Kurt Sabacinski both threw line drive bullets to home to stop runners from advancing or scoring. Matt Ball and Thad Kaliszewski made several nice plays at shortstop and third base respectively, on hard hit ground balls and line drives. Pat Sullivan also made some nice defensive plays from the mound and had five assists to go with his four strikeouts. There was some good aggressive base running too by Pat Sullivan, Matt Higgins, and Tejean Pluverge. So it is another day of practice and then another game. Let’s hope all the bugs are worked out. Take a deep breath and say, “Ah, it is nice to still be alive.” Ps. This game summary is one viewer’s opinion. Please email any letters to the editor to wobrien@worcester.edu I will give plenty of space for alternative assessments. Bill OB :)

In a game matching undefeated teams, one team had to come away with a loss. Unfortunately Burkett came out on the short end of a close 5-3 ball game that was filled with defensive gems, matching home runs, a huge crowd of onlookers, and a little bit of the jitters on both sides. Schwartz went up 1-0 on a solo home run in the second inning and then added three more runs in the third, including a two run homer, to take a 4-0 lead after three innings, but Burkett was just starting to get warmed up. In the fourth inning, with one man on, Tejean Pluverge hit his third home run in three games to cut the Schwartz lead to 4-2. After Schwartz cobbled together a run in the top of the fifth to go up 5-2, Jay O’Brien hit a home run in the bottom of the fifth to cut the score to 5-3. Unfortunately for Burkett that is where the score ended, but not without further chances. Matt Ball pitched all six innings for Burkett but the strong Schwartz batters kept the Burkett fielders busy by banging out 12 hits for the day and striking out only twice. In contrast, Burkett’s batters could only manage six hits and struck out eight times. Tejean led the way for Burkett with a single to go with his homer and was intentionally walked in the fifth inning when Burkett had runners on second and third. The rest of the Burkett hitters that hit the ball hard hit at steady Schwartz fielders who mostly made the play. As the final score attests, the Schwartz fielders made more plays for the day, even though the Burkett fielders made their share of plays. In the field for Burkett, Cory Loomer looked sharp at first base in the early innings and Mike St. Martin made several great grabs in left field to stop sure hits and runs and keep Burkett within striking distance late in the game. Kurt Sabacinski made a nice catch in left. Brian Reynolds picked a runner off first base in the first inning, but ultimately on this day Schwartz got more hits and won the game. Still it was a good baseball game played between two strong teams that could have gone either way. Burkett only hopes it gets to see Schwartz again