Livingston Temple Softball League 07/13/14

Sharey Tefilo Israel (14-0) finished off their undefeated season with a 35-13 win over a shorthanded (8 players) Temple Emanu-El. The E-Men actually had a 12-11 lead after 2 innings but TSTI regrouped and took off from there. TSTI put together the most prolific scoring season in the league's history with 286 runs but failed to break Temple Emanu-El's runs against record with these last 13 putting TSTI at 107 runs against. The E-Men gave up 100 runs in the A division in 2003. Beth Shalom's 80 runs against is the league record but was done in the B division in 2005. TSTI has now won 18 games in a row going back to last year. In 2003 when we started the A & B division set up, Temple Emanu-El won their 1st 21 games (4 in 2004) in a row which still is the record for  longest league winning streak. The E-Men also had won 20 in a row going into 2003 making that 41 consecutive games without a loss. But that 20 game win streak in 2001-2002 was when we had a mixed schedule with an A, B and C division. B'nai Jeshurun held on to the #2 seed going into next week's playoffs with a 16-6 win over B'nai Shalom (#4). Pine Brook (#5) will face B'nai Shalom in the 1st round after they defeated AABJD (#3) 10-6. Temple Sinai (#6) won the right to remain in the A division next season winning over B'nai Abraham (#7) in 8 innings 15-14. Temple Emanu-El tied B'nai Abraham in the regular season but the runs against tie breaker makes them the #8 seed since they split their head to head contests.

Temple Sholom (11-3) edged Agudath Israel (10-4) by a score of 10-9 to take the top spot in the B division. TSWE jumped out to an early 5-0 lead but CAI tightened up the defense and fought back to take a 9-6 lead. TSWE came back to tie it in the bottom of the 6th and turned their 2nd double play of the game in the top of the 7th to keep the game tied. In the bottom of the inning Brian Frese drove in Jeff Shapiro for the walk off win. Frese was joined in a 3-4 game by Mat Kaplan and Jeff Shapiro who also homered for TSWE.  In the loss, James Gurland had a bases clearing 3 run double for CAI. B'nai Brith will be the #3 seed after a 17-5 win over Suburban Torah (#5). Despite tying Agudath Israel in the regular season standings B'nai Brith lost their only game against that team. One of the hottest teams in the B division continued to roll as B'nai Or (#4) defeated Chabad (#6) 22-9. B'nai Or had 12 runs in the first two innings and coasted to the win led by Jason Cohen (4 runs, 3 run HR), Keith Barbarosh (3 hits, 3 runs), Scott Charles (3 hits, 3 RBI's), Craig Rosen (4 RBI's and Jordan Byk (3 hits, 2 runs, 3 RBI's). Ner Tamid (#8) extended their season at least one more game with a 13-1 win over B'nai Israel which gave them each the same record but Ner Tamid is awarded the last playoff spot by virtue of the least runs against tiebreaker. In the win, Rob Crum and Justin Festa both homered and the entire team played great defense with highlight reel catches from Justin Festa, Dave Drier and Rob Crum. Ohr Torah pulled off the best comeback in their short team history. Down 5 runs to Beth Shalom with 2 outs in the bottom of the 7th they somehow scored 6 straight to take the 17-16 win. Ohr Torah will now be one of only 3 teams to start next season on a winning streak. In the loss, Mark Konstandt was 5-5 tying a team record. He also had 2 doubles and 2 triples. He broke another team record by getting tagged out twice in one inning.