MILTON - Tommy Reisinger finished what John Ayers started, and Shamokin-Mount Carmel is now one win away from the District 13 10-11 Little League Baseball championship.
Ayers started on the mound and fired 4 2/3 innings of no-hit, shutout baseball before he was removed due to reaching his pitch count limit.
Reisinger took over and never missed a beat, working the final inning and a third in the same fashion and S-MC forced a deciding game with a 6-0 no-hit victory over previously undefeated Berwick at Milton's Feichtel Field.
With Berwick winning 5-2 when the teams met earlier in the tournament, they'll play the rubber match today at 1 p.m. on the same diamond with the winner grabbing the district title and advancing to sectional play next week.
"The difference between this game and the first time we played them is that we hit at critical times today with runners on base," Shamokin-Mount Carmel manager Chris Carpenter said. "The first time we played, we didn't do that."
The game was scoreless through the first three innings before S-MC broke the ice with a pair of runs in the bottom of the fourth.
With one out, Jack Chapman doubled and moved to third on the throw to the infield. One batter later, he scored when Quinn Rollman reached on an error by the Berwick shortstop. Matt Grabowski's sacrifice bunt moved Rollman to third. Then, with two outs, Max Tillett's single to right knocked in Rollman for the second run.
The locals added four more runs - a healthy bunch of insurance runs, considering the dominating pitching performance - in the bottom of the fifth. The big blows were Noah Berkoski's two-run single to left, an RBI infield single by Jack Chapman and Tillett's RBI double to left. Tillett finished three-for-four with a pair of runs batted in.
S-MC had threatened to score in the first inning, loading the bases with nobody out, but Berwick pitcher Alec Markle got Jacob Carpenter on strikes, then induced a double play when Matt Dimmick's line drive to third allowed Berwick to double Tillett, who had opened the game with a single, off the bag.
"After that first inning, I thought 'Oh no, this could be like the last time,'" Carpenter said.
But Ayers, first, then Reisinger never allowed the Berwick offense to get on track.
Ayers struck out nine and walked five in his 4.2 innings. Reisinger, inheriting two baserunners who reached with walks when he took over with two outs in the fifth, got Henry Novicki to ground out to first to end that threat, then struck out the side in succession in the top of the sixth to end the game.
"Ayers is our ace, that's a fact," Carpenter said. "But we have a lot of strong pitching.
"We have Tommy (Reisinger), Matt Dimmick, Logan (Wills) and Jack Chapman to come back with tomorrow. It can be a team effort on the mound tomorrow (Sunday) if that's what we need."
Game Summary
BERWICK (AB-R-H-BI) - I. Kishbaugh 2-0-0-0, Markle 2-0-0-0, Novicki 3-0-0-0, McCracken 3-0-0-0, Gearinger 2-0-0-0, Carrathers 2-0-0-0, Steward 1-0-0-0, Robbins 1-0-0-0, Maczuga 1-0-0-0, Sharkusky 1-0-0-0, Force 0-0-0-0, R. Kishbaugh 1-0-0-0. Totals 19-0-0-0.
SHAMOKIN-MOUNT CARMEL (AB-R-H-BI) - Tillett 4-0-3-2, Wills 4-0-2-0, Reisinger 3-0-0-0, Carpenter 3-0-0-0, Dimmick 2-1-0-0, Ayers 2-1-1-0, Chapman 2-1-1-1, Demko 1-1-1-0, Albertson 1-1-0-0, Rollman 0-1-0-0, Berkoski 2-0-1-2, Grabowski 0-0-0-0. Totals 24-6-9-5.
Berwick 000 000 - 0 0 3
S-MC 000 24x - 6 9 1
Extra-base hits: 2B - Tillett, Demko.
IP H R ER BB K
Berwick
Markle (L) 5 9 6 5 4 2
S-MC
Ayers (W) 4.2 0 0 0 9 5
Reisinger 1.1 0 0 0 3 0