Livingston Temple Softball League 07/02/17

Chabad (11-2) defeated Pine Brook 16-12 and locked up 1st place in the A division, officially ending Sharey Tefilo Israel's 3 year reign as A division regular season champions. It was the 2013 season when a team other than STI was the top seed (Temple Emanu-El). After losing their 1st 4 games this season, B'nai Brith has now won 8 of their last 9 and is in a 3 way tie for 2nd. Led by the strong hitting of Don Newell, Jared Resnick, Howie Weinrib, and Paul Kuchinsky, (all 4-5) B'nai Brith defeated Sharey Tefilo Israel by a score of 21-6. BB played solid defense behind pitcher Wayne Neumann who kept the potent STI lineup in check. The offense came a little easier than usual this week at Hillside giving us the highest scoring game of the season as Temple Sinai became the 1st team over 30 this year in a 35-20 win over Agudath Israel. B'nai Jeshurun scored 7 in the top of the 1st but AABJD answered with 9 in the bottom of the inning enroute to a 16-12 win. For AABJD, Kenny Falkenstein hit a homer & Josh Kaplan had a triple.

After a 29-6 win over Suburban Torah (9-3) B'nai Or (9-2) now has at least a tie for the B division regular season title and one more win will put them alone at the top. B'nai Or's first 4 batters of the day combined for the cycle and a 14 run 4th put the game away. In the win, Jason Cohen hit a homerun over the left field fence at Okner and Scott Charles had a home run and was 4-4 with 6 RBI's. Beth Shalom got back in the win column with a 19-4 victory over Ner Tamid. In the loss, Justin Festa had a 2 run homer and made a great catch in left center running full speed with his back to home plate robbing Zach Cohen (4-5) of a homerun and what would have been the cycle. Also in the win there were homeruns from Doug Netburn (4-4), Neil Grossman (3 runs), and Russ Wachtler (3-4). Mike Elchoness had a double, triple and 3 RBI's while Josh Lipschitz was 3-4 with 2 doubles.  One more week left in the regular season and the playoffs start 7/16.