Click the thumbnails to see photos and videos, and to hear post-game comments from Max Frustaglio, Mason Swenor, Brayden Gleason, and Killian Ryan. Also click to listen to a replay of the WUPT broadcast (in 20-minute segments)
JENISON, Mich.---Out by out, inning by inning, the state championship game for the 14u Junior Little League boys kept moving along. And Negaunee was winning.
Could this really be happening? Negaunee? Against Muskegon Roosevelt Park, a team that had completely dominated everybody they played by scores of 9-0, 12-2, 18-2, and 10-0?
Negaunee? Who had pulled out two one-run wins in the pool play, got drilled by a winless team, and then had to pull out a late win in the semifinals?
Negaunee? Still winning? Yes. It was happening, and it happened. Negaunee's boys, in baseball's version of “Hoosiers”, shocked the world with an 8-4 win over Roosevelt Park to capture the first state championship in Negaunee Little League history.
Negaunee? Really? The boys even had their doubts entering the day, but were kissing a large trophy and running around the Georgetown Little League ballfields with a state championship banner. Yes, Negaunee!
“No,” Negaunee catcher Brayden Gleason said when asked if he thought this was possible. “I heard that this team was really good, and they beat Birmingham (last year's state champs) 9-0. But this is actually really awesome, because last year, we made it to the state semifinals and lost. This just feels awesome.”
That loss last year came to Birmingham in a tight game, but this time, Negaunee scored seven runs in the final two innings to pull out a stunning 11-6 win, sending the defending state champs packing and putting Negaunee into the title game.
“That feeling (last year), not good,” Negaunee third baseman/center fielder Mason Swenor said. “We're on the top! Well, not on the top, but on top of Birmingham, especially. Revenge is good. Not good for them. But good for us.”
In the championship game, though, Negaunee nearly blew it. The boys had steadily built a 5-0 lead with timely hitting, great pitching from Evan Dellangelo, and spot-on defense at nearly every position. Then, in the sixth inning, it almost all came crashing down, as the boys made three errors, including two on very easy routine infield plays.
All of a sudden, the lead was down to 5-4, and Roosevelt Park had the tying and go-ahead runs on base. But Negaunee stopped the bleeding as relief pitcher Max Frustaglio got a huge strikeout to end the top of the sixth inning. The guys were determined to not let this chance at history slip away. The message?
“Just keep hitting the ball, we can do this, it's not the end yet,” Negaunee first baseman Killian Ryan said. “It was just stuff that we should be doing. We just couldn't let it happen. We've been playing together all our lives, and we've had a great connection through school and stuff.”
Negaunee came back in the bottom of the sixth inning with three more runs to help make the seventh inning less-tense than it otherwise would have been.
Gleason started it with a double and Ryan followed with a double of his own to plate a run. Frustaglio helped his own cause with a sacrifice fly, then Peyton Black smacked an RBI triple into the right field corner. Negaunee? Yep, an 8-4 lead heading into the last inning.
Surely, Negaunee will blow it, right? Roosevelt Park had its best hitters coming to the plate. All of them can hit. But Frustaglio dug deep. He got two groundouts to start the inning, and when Eli Habetler crushed a line drive up the middle, Frustaglio caught it.
Negaunee? YES, NEGAUNEE. They shocked themselves, and shocked the world.
“It just came up to me,” Frustaglio said. “And I put my glove up, and it just went in, Thank God. I have to give it to them, though. They're a really good team. They hit the ball. But, I mean, my stuff was working today. And, we're state champs!”
They are state champs because everybody contributed. Whether it was a boy at the bottom of the order drawing a walk, or at least fouling off pitches to drive up the opponent's pitch count, or backing up an errant throw, everybody contributed something in this championship. At the top of the list: Dellangelo, who did it with both his arm and with the bat.
Dellangelo had thrown 29 pitches to close out the semifinal win over Birmingham, after a 6-6 tie turned into an 11-6 “revenge win” from last year's heartbreaking loss, which Dellangelo was a part of. So, he had only 66 pitches to work with against the heavy-hitting Roosevelt Park team, and Dellangelo kept them under control.
Dellangelo threw four innings of three-hit, shutout ball, before running out of pitches on the 95-pitch-limit and turning the ball over to Frustalgio.
Dellangelo also did it at the plate, and with his baserunning skills. In the first inning, he smoked a one-out double, stole third base, and stole home plate, giving Negaunee some early confidence and a 1-0 lead.
A big inning was the third inning, when guys at the bottom of the order contributed enough to get Dellangelo back to the plate. Drake Ayotte led off with a single and went to second on a balk. Ty Niemi got hit by a itch. The next two guys, Vince Tincknell and Griffin Leace, both struck out, but used up valuable pitches for Roosevelt Park lefty pitcher Grady Kawkawski.
Swenor drew a walk on a 3-2 pitch, loading the bases for Dellangelo. And he delivered with a shot out of the reach of a diving center fielder, bringing in two runs and giving Negaunee an improbable 4-0 lead heading to the middle innings.
In the fifth inning, with two out and no one on base, Kawkawski ran out of pitches. He was replaced by Braylin Fuchini, and here's where the bottom of the Negaunee order helped out. Tincknell put the ball in play with two strikes on him and the third baseman made an error, and then Leace battled hard for a walk.
That gave Swenor a chance, and he smoked a shot to the left field fence that brought home Negaunee's fifth run.
The top of the sixth was rough for Negaunee, as they made three errors, and Roosevelt Park made them pay, including a huge two-run single up the middle by Max Silva that cut the Negaunee lead to 5-4. But the future Miners got tough from there, especially Frustaglio, who used his curveball to frustrate Muskegon's strong hitting lineup.
For Negaunee, it would have been a successful day even had they not pulled the stunner over Roosevelt Park. That's because they found a way to beat Birmingham in the semifinals, a team they lost to in last year's Final Four. A loss that still hurt for the four guys on this team who were also on last year's team.
Dellangelo was big at the plate in that game, too, with two triples, including one in the first inning. He scored on a wild pitch.
In the fourth inning, Negaunee trailed, 2-1, before Peyton Black smoked a triple to the fence, bringing home three runs.
That gave the team a boost, and when the chips were down in the top of the seventh inning, tied at 6, Waylon Harvala came through with a two-run base hit. More proof that the wins over these downstate teams took everyone doing something.
Ryan, one of the younger guys on the team, started on the mound, and was followed by Frustaglio, and eventually, Dellangelo.
With this being a two-games-in-one day deal, any unused pitches in the semifinal could be used in the championship game, which is how both Dellangelo and Frustaglio were able to throw against Roosevelt Park.
And now, after all of that, Negaunee has won its first-ever state title, and will represent Michigan in the Central Regional Tournament, which will start next Wednesday, August 2, and it will be right here in Michigan: in Midland.
There are nine teams in the event, including the host team from Midland. Negaunee will have its first game of the tournament, on Wednesday, August 2, against the Kentucky State Champions, at 2 p.m.
