Livingston Temple Softball League 04/16/17

Only 1 week late and opening day saw the two division champions from last year in a head to head battle. Last year's A division winners, Sharey Tefilo Israel had a 6-5 lead over the 2016  B champions B'nai Jeshurun after 4 innings. Then the bats heated up on both sides with B'nai Jeshurun pulling ahead for a 22-15 win. In their victory 13 players had at least 1 hit and 1 run and both Marc Weinstein and Eli Heitin had long homeruns. Chabad opened their season with an 8 run top of the 1st and proceeded to give up 9 in the 2nd inning to B'nai Brith. It was a close game the whole way but Chabad prevailed with a 17-13 victory. For the winners, Jon Tsihlas was 5-5 with 3 doubles and 4 runs. David Levine had an outfield assist, a single, double and long homerun in the 5th to put Chabad ahead for good.  Joe Boettinger  had 2 hits, 3 runs scored and an incredible diving catch to end a BB rally. In the loss, Don Newell led the offense with 4 hits and Gregg Weinberger blasted a 2 run homer. Pine Brook defeated Agudath Israel 13-7. For the losers, Mark Davis was 5-5 and Rob Field 4-5. In the closest A Division game of the day Temple Sinai nipped AABJD 20-19.

In the B division, Ner Tamid took a 9-3 lead after two innings behind Justin Festa's three-run homer (5 RBIs) and held on for the 9-7 win over Suburban Torah.  B'nai Or could do nothing wrong with 16 runs in the 1st 3 innings leading to a 21-4 win over B'nai Abraham. For the winners, Eric Axler had 2 homeruns and 5 RBI's, Rick Simon a triple and 4 RBI's, and Bill Schlosser a triple and 3 RBI's. Every one of the 12 starters scored at least 1 run and 10 different players had at least 1 RBI. Beth Shalom had a 9-4 lead over B'nai Israel after 5 innings but 11 runs in the top of the 7th capped off a great comeback giving B'nai Israel the 19-10 win. In the loss, assistant manager and bat boy Matthew Lipschitz' dad Josh was 4-4. Only 1 game next week which will be the regular schedule (4/23).