A large crowd at Cherry Hill East on Aug. 6 welcomed home the Cherry Hill Little League 16U team as national champions.
The team competed in regional championships in Bangor, Maine, late last month before heading to Easley, South Carolina, to represent the East region and New Jersey in the Senior League World Series.
“It was a dream come true for me as well as the kids,” said team manager Christian Carkeek. “Cherry Hill is a very baseball-centered town as far as its primary sport for the high school and four little leagues, and there’s a lot of kids who are very very good baseball players who have come through the program but never got the chance that these boys got over the last 10 to 11 days.”
The World Series tournament had two brackets: one American, where the regional champions faced off against each other, and one international, where six countries competed against each other. The winners from those two brackets then went head to head in a one-game International World Championship.
Both brackets were double-elimination and played in Easley, with 12 teams competing.
The 16U team consisted of players from both East and West high schools, both Cherry Hill Atlantic and American Little Leagues. Players are Andrew Bechtel, Eric Brown, Brody Connors, Jimmy Farley, Kyle Fisher, Carter Gill, Brody Goldfarb, Mick Goldstein, Cole Haddock, Austin Hanni, Stephen Longo, Luciano Macri, Ryan Moyer, Tristan Perry, Aiden Ryder, Zach Salsbery. Carkeek was joined by coaches Chandler Dunoff, Ben Keating and Scott Burnham.
“We grew a lot …” recalled Ryder, a pitcher and center fielder for the West team. “We were from two different schools and we didn’t really have a connection yet, but we just kept winning and hanging out together. And the bond just grew and kept growing.”
The 16U team won 17 of 19 post-season games, and while it was unable to take the World Series tournament game against Curacao on Aug. 5, many of its players still consider the season a win. Coaches and players attributed their success to a number of things, including real friendship and camaraderie among the players.
Leading up to that World Series final, the 16U team beat Hawaii 6-1 in the opening game on July 30, then beat South Carolina 6-5 Aug. 1. They went up against Hawaii again on Aug. 4 and won 12-2.
Ryder noted that among memorable season moments for him were the last few regional games against Pennsylvania, where the team had to win two consecutive games. Bases were loaded, and the team notched two outs to keep the game tied. They were able to walk it off in the next inning in the regional championship.
Also memorable was Austin’s pitching of a complete opening game against Hawaii and timely hitting by Macri and Bechtel.
“Hanni allowed one run and eight hits while striking out four and walking none in his seven-inning complete game. Macri hit two doubles and three RBIs; Bechtel had two hits and scored twice,” according to a team press release.
In their second game against South Carolina, Hanni had three-and-a-third scoreless innings, and Perry, Bechtel and Ryder added multiple hits. In their final game against Hawaii, there were big hits by Brown, Moyer and Bechtel.
Ryder noted that as the games progressed, so did community support. When the team got to the World Series, there was a watch party for every game at Kaminski’s Sports Bar & Restaurant in Cherry Hill.
“I was just excited for the opportunity to play on ESPN, because no other kid has that opportunity much,” noted East’s Perry, a pitcher for 16U who also plays first base and the outfield.
Though they lost that final game against Curacao 14-1, it didn’t diminish how far the team came during the season.
“Winning the national championship, I don’t want to say we’re content, because nobody wants to lose,” Carkeek said, “but we did go against America’s best teams, and at the end of the day, we were the ones that came out on top of America.”
