13A1 exploded for 8 runs in the 2nd inning yesterday to cruise past the Park Ridge Jr. Hawks and win the LSFBL championship, 12-1.

As his been the case all season, it was a team effort for Coach Kosinski's squad.  Every single player reached base or knocked in a run, and 13A1 was paced by Ben Toft's 3-3 with 2 doubles, Sam Newlands's 2 hits and 3 RBI, and Chris Donaldson's huge 2nd inning bases loaded hit that broke the game wide open.  On the mound, C.J. Donnelly was terrific, pitching a complete game one-hitter.

In winning NTF's 10th title in the last four years, 13A1 Blue finished a spectacular 26-3 season, highlighted by a 168-40 run differential in league play, two thrashings of arch rival Mundelein, and tournament wins over Top Tier North, Rhino Baseball, Windy City Black, Stoppers Black, and Warriors Baseball Black.  Congrats to Coach Kosinski and all of his players on a job well done.

While we celebrate our champions today, to us success is about more than wins and losses, and so we would be remiss at not pointing out the successes of our other teams.  While 13A1 was the only victor on Sunday, 14A1 played top seeded Mundelein to a 2-2 tie until the bottom of the 6th before falling.  On Saturday, #2 seeded 14B had the tying and winning runs on base in the bottom of the 7th of its semifinal before coming up just short.  14A2 battled to a 6-8 season as our 2nd team in the division, a terrific accomplishment.  13A2 rallied from a difficult start to win four straight in mid-July.  And each of our split 13B teams won playoff games and led late in their second playoff games before ultimately falling to high seeds.

As is always the case, the most indelible memories of the week for those of us that run the program, however, are off the field. The number of kids who turned up to root their friends on other teams on was astounding.  When we said at the start of the year that this was a community, one in which all 101 of our players was equally important to us, we meant it--and all of us who run this program are so happy to see the kids, over and over again, support each other, both on and off the field.  To us, that's what community baseball is all about.  Particularly in these difficult times, we hope that we were able to provide at some joy and distraction in what has been a long, hard year in the world.

Once again, thanks for the honor of entrusting the development of your kids to us this season. We hope you are as proud of them as we are.

Drew Cardonick, President
New Trier Feeder Baseball