Livingston Temple Softball League 06/08/14

Sharey Tefilo Israel (8-0) had a great overall team effort in their 18-7 win over AABJD and now has a 2 game lead atop the A division. Dave Dennenberg and Matt Katz led the offensive attack while Steve Weissman and Jason Grebin made outstanding plays in the field to fend off any threats by AABJD. The 2nd game forfeit by B'nai Abraham gave TSTI their league leading 8th win in a row.  AABJD (6-2) won their 2nd game by a 15-9 margin over Temple Emanu-El  and is just 1/2 game shy of 2nd place. Highlighting the win were Josh Edelstein's 3 run homer and Marty Moskovitz with a 3 run triple and 5 RBI's. B'nai Jeshurun (7-2) swept their double set and is all alone in 2nd place at the moment. An 8 run 1st inning was used to pace themselves to a 15-7 win over Temple Sinai in the opener. In the second game TBJ was down 6-2 in the bottom of the 7th inning and scored 5 times for the win which was capped off by Scott Dodek's RBI single to end it. B'nai Jeshurun had some key defensive plays throughout the game with great catches by David Nathan, Mike Hansel, Mark Weinstein and Rich Blann helping pitcher Scott Dodek. B'nai Shalom also swept their double header going wire to wire in the 1st and coming from behind in the 2nd.They were up 8-1 against Pine Brook in the first game and held on for the 12-10 win. Michael Chuven, David Katz and Scott Bader had 4 hits each to lead the way. In the 2nd game, David Helderman had 2 homers with the second one keying a 6 run rally in the bottom of the 6th after Temple Sinai took a 2 run lead in the top of that inning. Final score - B'nai Shalom 13 Temple Sinai 11. The final game  in the division saw Temple Emanu-El edging B'nai Abraham 17-16.

B'nai Brith (7-2) won their 6th and 7th in a row by defeating Suburban Torah 19-12 and Ohr Torah 23-5. In the first game homeruns by Jason Crimmins and Paul Velelis highlighted the win. In the 2nd game the entire lineup hit well but the defensive play of the day was made by Steve Miller in right field who had a lunging grab of a line drive to deflate a last gasp rally by Ohr Torah. Agudath Israel (8-1) finally lost a game and almost fell into a 3 way tie for 1st but came up big in the last inning of the 2nd game to maintain their hold on the top spot of the B division.  Temple Sholom (7-2) took a 13-1 lead in the top of the 4th but CAI scored 12 runs in the home 4th to tie it up. Temple Sholom scored 4 more after that while holding the opposition scoreless over the last 3 innings and CAI lost 17-13. In the win, Mat Kaplan, Brian Frese, Marc Wolf and Nate Treff all had 4 hits. Also for TSWE, Jeff Goldberger was a double shy of the cycle and made a great juggling catch in the outfield.  In Agudath Israel's next game B'nai Or had a 7-4 lead going into the home 7th against CAI but after the first 4 batters hit safely and an intentional walk was issued, James Gurland knocked in the tying and winning runs with a ground rule double into the woods at Harrison. Agudath Israel 8 B'nai Or 7. Playing for CAI Mark Davis had 3 homeruns on the day. 2 in the first game and 1 in the second. In the loss, B'nai Or was led by Adam Forman and Scott Charles on offense. On defense, Todd Gutkin played great at short to help keep the game as close as it was. B'nai Or's 1st game was a low scoring 4-1 win over Chabad. The winners scored 4 in the 1st and there was only 1 more run between the 2 teams the rest of the way. Clutch 2 out hits by Bill Schlosser, Adam Forman and Scott Charles accounted for B'nai Or's 4 runs and Todd Gutkin had another great game at short to shut down Chabad. TSWE's 2nd game was a replay of their 1st game. They exploded for 10 first inning runs but after 5 innings were only ahead of Beth Shalom by a 12-11 margin. In the top of the 6th they extended their lead with a 5 run inning (Brian Frese 3 run homer)  but Beth Shalom brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the 7th before falling 17-14. The flawless play all game at shortstop of Mat Kaplan made the difference in TSWE's win. In Beth Shalom's 1st game, Phil Sperling hit for the cycle and had 6 RBI's with 3 runs scored to pace them in a 22-16 win over AABJD/Ohr Torah. Also hitting homers in the win were, Jason Blinkoff, Neil Grossman (3-4, 4 RBI's) and Jon Ruditser. Other scores in the B division were B'nai Israel winning 2 games (14-10 over Suburban Torah and 8-7 in 8 innings against Ner Tamid) and Ner Tamid losing to Chabad 13-4.