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BANGOR – Earlier this week Jason Nardi hit a grand slam in a pool play game to lift the U.S. East team to a key win in the Senior League World Series.
All the East team from Freehold Township, N.J., needed from Nardi in the sixth inning of Friday’s semifinal at Mansfield Stadium was a base hit. Once again, Nardi came through.
Nardi’s single to right drove in Shawn Boysen and lifted Freehold Township to a 1-0 win over U.S. South entry Dade City, Fla., for a berth in Saturday’s World Series championship game at 1 p.m.
“We’ve said from Day One that this is our year,” said winning pitcher Jason Elo, who scattered six hits in the shutout. “We wanted to put it all together, come up here and win a few games. And here we are.”
The East will face U.S. West champ El Rio of Oxnard, Calif., also a 1-0 winner over Latin America representative Maracaibo, Venezuela, in the other semifinal.
Freehold was the No. 2 seed in Pool B while Dade City was the No. 1 seed in Pool A.
South pitcher Dominic Brown, a 6-foot-5 lefty who had already picked up two wins in pool play, allowed just one leadoff batter to reach until he walked Boysen on four pitches to start the sixth.
Brown recovered to strike out the next batter but Boysen advanced on a wild pitch during that at-bat, setting up a chance for Nardi.
He laced a 1-1 outside pitch to right and Boysen hustled around third to score.
“I just had to take pitches, wait for my pitch, drive the ball,” Nardi said. “On an outside pitch I had to drive it to the right side and I did that.”
Nardi himself never got to third – he stole second but was stranded there when Brown induced a flyout and struck out the last batter of the inning.
Dade City tried to respond in the bottom of the sixth but fell victim to the defensive play of the game.
Jaime Cruz led off with a single and stole second. Elo got a flyout and then had to face Stephen Roe, who doubled in the second. Roe had a 2-0 count when Cruz tried to steal third, but East catcher Marc Hubbert and third baseman Korey Yngstrom combined to pick him off.
The play turned out to be even more critical as Julian Juarez singled in the next at-bat – a hit which surely would have scored Cruz.
“It was one of those things where we weren’t getting the timely hits and I was trying to make something happen,” Dade City manager Dale Maggard said. “We needed one run. [Cruz] didn’t as good of a jump as I would have liked … but I’d do the same thing again.”
Freehold got out of the inning safely when the defense got Juarez at second on a fielder’s choice.
“[The pickoff] was huge,” said Elo, who used a fastball and curveball to keep Dade City off balance. “They ran themselves out of a big inning. When that happened I knew it was over and I was going to shut them down.”
Elo earned his second win of the World Series, striking out three and walking two. He let his defense do a lot of the work with 18 outs in the field.
Dade City never found its rhythm against the big righty.
“Our bats just weren’t as sharp the last two games,” Maggard said. “We were pulling off the ball just a little bit.”
Both teams had plenty of chances as the East stranded 11 runners, including three in the seventh, and the South left seven.
U.S. EAST 1, U.S. SOUTH 0
Freehold Twp, N.J. (4-1) Dade City, Fla. (3-2)
Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI
Csakai, cf 4 0 1 0 Brown, p 4 0 0
Rusbarsky, ss 4 0 2 0 Shields, ss 3 0
Cuneo, 1b 1 0 0 0 Cruz, 2b 3 0 0
Boysen, lf 3 1 0 0 Maggard, c 3 0 0
LaCava, c-3b 3 0 0 0 Roe, 3b 2 0 1 0
Hayes, rf 1 0 0 0 Juarez, 1b 3 0 0
Nardi, rf 3 0 1 1 Mathis, rf-cf 2 0 0
Yngstrom, 3b 1 0 0 0 Wells, lf 1 0 0
Hubbert, c 1 0 0 0 Hedman, lf 1 0 0
Brach, 2b 1 0 0 0 Roberts, lf-rf 2 0 0
DiCaro, 2b 1 0 0 0 Capehart, cf 1 0 0
Elo, p 2 0 0 0 Pullin, lf 1 0 0
Totals 25 1 4 1 Totals 26 0 6 0
U.S. East 000 001 0 ? 1
U.S. South 000 000 0 ? 0
E?Rusbarsky; Roe; LOB?East 11, South 7; 2B?Roe; DP?South 1; SB?Rusbarsky, Nardi; Wells, Cruz
U.S. East IP H R ER BB SO
Elo (W, 2-0) 7 6 0 0 2 3
U.S. South IP H R ER BB SO
Brown (L, 2-1) 7 4 1 1 7 6
HBP?Brown by Yngstromg; WP?Brown; T?1:40; ATT?800 (est.)
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