By Gary Curreri
Host Deerfield Beach rallied from an early 5-0 deficit to pull out a 10-9 victory over Ft. Lauderdale and capture the District 10 Little League Junior Division Championship last week.
The Deerfield Beach Mets started their comeback with two runs in the bottom of the third and added four runs in the bottom of the fifth to take a 6-5 lead as Lorenzo Feliciano, Brock Buerosse, and Janelle Calvet all contributed in the big inning with RBIs.
After Deerfield added another run in the bottom of the fifth, Ft. Lauderdale rallied to take a 9-7 lead in the top of the six with four runs. Undaunted, the Mets pulled ahead for good, scoring three runs of their own and Feliciano broke the 9-9 deadlock with a fielder’s choice that scored Maxwell Thompson from third with what proved to be the winning run.
“It’s my first championship and it is really cool,” said Deerfield Beach Little League Junior Division manager Jason Siracusa, who also took over this year as the league president. This is his third year as an All-Star manager.
“It was like a six day a week, seven day a week ordeal between coaching a team, running the league, and also coaching T-Ball, I was all over the place.”
“In the end, it was worth it,” Siracusa said. “We made a lot of changes to the league and the league is shaping up and ending the year with a championship is pretty special.”
Calvet, who went 3 for 4 at the plate and threw out a runner stealing second to get the first out in the top of the seventh (her cousin is Colin Calvet), plays on an all-girls travel baseball team in addition to the All-Stars. Buerosse had two hits and a walk for Deerfield Beach.
Keanu Siracusa went 4-1/3 innings and allowed five runs – just two earned – on two hits while striking out seven for the Mets. Gio Caffro and Neile Thomas came on in relief and closed the door on the Indians to win the championship.
Manager Siracusa said the Junior Division tournament featured teams from Deerfield Beach, Parkland, Coral Springs and Ft. Lauderdale. Deerfield Beach had 12 players on its roster but played the final with just nine players due to conflicts.
Deerfield Beach opened district play with a 1-0, extra-inning win over Ft. Lauderdale and then cruised past Coral Springs American, 12-2, before falling 7-4 to Ft. Lauderdale to set up the winner take all matchup last Friday night.
“We had better depth in pitching,” Siracusa said. “It was really an across the board team effort.”
“ We had a team of players that have played together for several years and they all back each other up,” Siracusa added. “They have a want-to-win mentality. We dominated the league this year going 13-1 with the only loss to Ft. Lauderdale 13-1. We outscored our opponents, 179-24. Our pitching super dominated everyone. Obviously, it can’t get any better than this. From here on, the rest is icing on the cake.”
Deerfield Beach will next play in the Sectional competition on July 20 in Tallahassee.