Kayla Roncin has yet to be retired through two games in the Little League Mid-Atlantic Regional and Toms River has yet to be defeated, either.
The central New Jersey team of 11- and 12-year-olds improved to 2-0 in the six-team tournament — the winner reaches South Williamsport, Pa. for the Little League World Series — with a 6-4 victory over Colonie Little League (Albany, NY) in Bristol, Conn. on Sunday, all but cementing a spot in Friday’s semifinal round.
Roncin, the 12-year-old girl not only playing with the boys but excelling, went 2-for-2 with a pair of singles — two of Toms River’s four hits on Sunday — after she had a two-run double in Saturday’s 12-2 rout of Northwest Washington (DC) Little League. Overall, she’s 3-for-3 with two runs scored and has also reached base on an error.
“She’s been great. We only had four hits today and she had two of them,” said Toms River manager Pete Avallone, whose team improved to 17-2 in tournament-play this summer. “She really hasn’t shown anything to us or the boys that is surprising. We know she can play. I’m sure she’s turning some heads here, for people who aren’t used to seeing girls playing this far into the tournament. She’s making people talk the first couple of days.”
Colonie, which takes on West Salisbury Little League (Md.) Monday at 5 p.m., fell to 1-1.
Toms River’s Jason Kapp hit a three-run homer, Jonathan Giordano struck out nine over 3¹/₃ innings pitched for the win and Nick DeRose picked up the save with two innings of work out of the bullpen and drove in two runs.
Toms River meets West Salisbury Tuesday at 10 a.m. before facing Newark National Little League (Del.), the defending Mid-Atlantic champion, in its pool play finale on Wednesday.
“The goal is just to win; to be 2-0. That’s the goal,” Avallone said, alluding to several errors his team made in the later innings against Colonie. “I’m happy with that, but we can play a lot better than we’re playing right now. It’s a bright spot we’re still winning and we haven’t played well. We’re going to need to play better to keep playing.”