It hasn’t been the easiest road for Section 6 Champion Stroudsburg at the Little League State Championships. Their first two victories over Keystone and Upper Providence were both by a lone run, which were then followed up by an 11-1 loss to East Pennsboro on Tuesday.
So it had to feel nice to notch a convincing 10-2 victory over West Point on Wednesday to advance to the State Championship Game this evening.
After a back-and-forth first few frames, Stroudsburg broke things open with a five-run fourth inning. Two more runs in the fifth were more than enough to support starting pitcher John Gizzo, who went 5 1/3 innings, striking out five and allowing two walks and seven hits to earn the victory.
Stroudsburg head coach Todd Litts was all smiles after his team earned its place as one of the two best Little League teams in the Keystone state.
“It feels great,” Litts said. “The kids deserve it. They fought in Sectionals, they’ve had to fight back here. I think that’s what they like to do.”
Both teams took advantage of a few errant throws in the early innings. The score stood level at 2-2 after West Point scored on a wild pitch in the top of the third.
Stroudsburg then opened the bottom of the third with back-to-back singles from Connor Litts and Anthony Knight. It was at this point that a pure hustle play kept the inning alive and gave Stroudsburg the lead.
Austin Herman hit the ball back to West Point pitcher Max Butler, who then started what looked like it could be an inning-ending double play. But Herman was going all-out and just beat the throw to first, allowing to come home and give Stroudsburg a 3-2 lead.
Stroudsburg then put the throttle down in the fourth inning, scoring five runs in five consecutive at-bats, as Litts, Knight, Gizzo, Herman, and Oak Holbert all notched an RBI in the frame.
It was the kind of confidence-building inning, and game, that coach Litts knew his team needed after Tuesday’s disappointing loss.
“Last night we had one guy get hurt who’s a big pitcher for us, so the whole team was a little down,” he said. “But they came out today like they have since they’ve been together. They know how to fight back.”
All of that offense helped give Gizzo a comfortable cushion on the mound. After allowing an RBI single in the second inning and the one run in the third, Gizzo shut down the West Point lineup for the rest of the game.
“John’s been big for us all year,” Litts said. “He gets a lot of strikes, a lot of ground balls. He’s been solid all year.”
Connor Litts came in to close out the sixth inning in relief of Gizzo to end the ballgame and punch Stroudsburg’s ticket to the title game.
Both Litts and Knight went 3-for-4 for Stroudsburg, while Alex Pacitti went 2-for-3.
Quinn Wilkins paced West Point by going 3-for-3 with an RBI.
Stroudsburg and East Pennsboro will face off today at 4 p.m. in the Championship Game. Stroudsburg will need to win twice to claim the title, as East Pennsboro has yet to lose in the state tourney.
“We’re set up pretty good,” Litts said. “We only have two pitchers unavailable out of seven. We’ve got our number one pitcher going the first game, and we’ll see what happens in the second game.”
