Northern Burlington Holds on to Defeat Burlington Township

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Northern Burlington Holds on to Defeat Burlington Township
Thursday, May 16, 2002

By Art Redd
SJSports Staff Writer

The Greyhounds from Northern Burlington traveled to Burlington Township with not much to lose and neither did the Falcons. As both of these teams took the field on Thursday afternoon, the group playoff brackets had already been decided. All there was left in this game were some individual goals, another win to their record and preparation for the upcoming playoffs. Mike Roman's home run in the second inning completed Northern Burlington's scoring and was enough to defeat Township 7-6. The Falcons' Ace Robinson's grand slam wasn't enough to overcome the Greyhounds lead.

After Northern Burlington jumped out to an early 1-0 lead after one inning, the Greyhounds weren't done scoring in the next inning. With their third consecutive single, Dave Schumann drove a 1-2 pitch to left-center to score the first two run of the inning. The scoring continued when Danny Pigott knocked in the third run of the inning and scored his second run of the game Mike Roman stepped up to the plate with two on and two outs. After fouling off several Todd Dallmann pitches, Roman would finally get a hold of a pitch he liked and drilled a 3-run homer to extend Northern Burlington's lead to 7-1.

It looked as if Township were only thinking about next week's playoffs as they played this non-divisional game. But that feeling didn't last long as they watched Andrew Csik's RBI double score James Dowdell to start the third inning off. Stepping up to the plate next was Gene Darling in search of his 100th career hit which had eluded him for quite some time. Not wasting any time at the plate, Darling lined a base hit up the middle and collected the ball that will signify a job well done during his four years at Burlington Township.

Ace Robinson has been doing it all for Burlington Township this year with his pitching and his bat. Robinson would relieve the starting pitcher in the top of the third inning and hold off the Greyhounds. As for the rest of the bottom of the third, with the bases loaded with Falcons, Robinson cleared the bases with his seventh home run to put Township within one run. Phil Tallon who ended the Falcons chances of tying this game would relieve Rob Caruso.

Northern Burlington would hold onto that one run lead for the rest of this game. Rob Caruso would pick up the win. The Greyhounds will be scheduled to play in an opening round South Jersey Group 2 preliminary game against Collingswood on Friday. As for Burlington Township, they will be hosting Moorestown on Monday to start their tournament bracket run at capturing the title. Ace Robinson would strike out 9 batters through five innings in his relief appearance. Gene Darling would collect one more hit (101) during to the game.