Barnegat Bandits Steal Title

The Barnegat Bandits 14U won the All-Shore Summer League tournament. (Photo courtesy Barnegat Bandits)

BARNEGAT – The Barnegat Bandits 14U softball bested the Holmdel Hornets in the All-Shore Summer League, bringing home the win.

The game capped a season of amazing play, team staff reported. “The Bandits have scored 77 times and only allowed 15 runs to score on them this summer season,” the club president John Fratianni said.

Both teams kept the other from scoring throughout the first inning, but Barnegat had a one-run lead at the end of the second. The fourth inning was key. Barnegat had runners on bases, and kept pushing to get them home, even against a double play by the Hornets. Ultimately, the girls’ teamwork brought two runners home, giving them a 3-1 lead.

The Hornets managed to get another run off Barnegat errors to bring it up to 3-2 in the fifth inning. However, the Bandits’ defense kept them from getting any more. The pitcher kept Holmdel’s batters in place in the sixth inning. In the seventh, Holmdel managed to get runners on base, but their batter shot the ball out to the pitcher, who threw the runner out at first to end the inning and the game.

“Great timely hitting combined with small ball and great pitching gets the win,” Fratianni said.