12U Cooperstown NATC Champions

- By Ernie Rapiere

August 27, 2009 Cooperstown Dreams Park – Week #12 NATC championship game featured the #3 seed So Cal Thunder and the #1 seed Tri State Arsenal. The results proved to be another outstanding game that went down to the wire with the final score being one of the closest of the year as Tri State, a team that came into this tournament with a 40-1 record, edged past the Thunder by a score of 2-1.

*2009_NATC_Week_Championship*	1	2	3	4	5	6	SCORE
#3 So Cal Thunder (California)	0	0	0	0	1	0	1
#1 Tri State Arsenal (New Jersey)	1	0	0	1	0	x	2

Throughout this tournament, Tri State had shown excellent pitching coupled with explosing offense. They had outscored their opponents by a whopping 224-28 margin. This amounts to an average of more that 20 runs scored per game.

But, Tri State didn’t need to score a lot to win the NATC Championship. Instead of the explosive offense they had exhibited throughout the week, this game proved to be a match-up of excellent pitchers. Zac Gakeler (winning pitcher) delivered four shutout innings for Tri Sate while allowing only 2 hits. Justin Haenman closed for Tri State and allowed the only run that So Cal scored while giving up only 1 hit.

Chase Lambert and Bryce Fehmel shared the mound for So Cal as each gave up only 1 run on 1 hit as they combined to strike out 7 batters.

The game started as Tri State quickly shut down the Thunder in 1-2-3 order in the top of the 1st inning. Then Tri State scored 1 run in the bottom of first inning when Ryan Shinn hit a solo homerun to right field. From there, Tri State never relinquished the lead.

After two straight scoreless innings, Tri State returned in the bottom of the 4th inning and extended their lead to 2-0 when Ryan Shinn hit his second solo homerun – this time to center field. That proved to be enough to win - even though the Thunder made a gallant rally attempt in the top of the 5th when Chase Lambert doubled down and Chris Colarossi followed with a singled to advance runners to third. Then Bryce Fehmel grounded out to the shortstop driving in Lambert who scored the only run for the Thunder.

From there, Justin Haenman, who closed for Tri State, buckled down and shut down the Thunder, striking out the first two batters he faced in the top of the 6th inning and forcing the third batter to pop out at first base – thus securing the Tri State Arsenal's indelible place in history as the 2009 Cooperstown NATC Champions.

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Last Updated on Thursday, 25 March 2010 09:40

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