As a fitting culmination of what has been a dominant inaugural season for the New York Nine Cubs at 11u, the Borough Cup presented one of their toughest challenges yet. With Nine Alum, Juan Miguel Torres at the helm and supported by coaches Ralphy Estrella and Antonio Bausone, the Cubs embarked on a difficult quest to play for the Borough Cup Championship at MCU Park in Brooklyn, home of the Cyclones.

Game 1 of the Borough Cup saw the New York Nine square off against the Brooklyn Bandits at HBQVB on July 28th. Miguel Sime was outstanding, striking out 13 in 6 no hit, no run innings. The Nine continuously put guys on in every inning but couldn’t get the key hit. They couldn’t, up until the 5th inning. Gio Bausone singled with one out and then immediately stole 2nd. Parker Tse hit a line drive single to right, advancing Bausone to 3rd. After a steal of 2nd by Tse and then a strikeout swinging for the 2nd out, the Nine pulled off a double steal of home with Bausone scoring on the play and Parker stealing 3rd. Jake Alfano would then single home Tse on an 0-2 count giving the Nine a 2-0 lead that they would not relinquish giving them their first win in the Borough Cup qualifying round.

Game 2 vs the Forest Hills Bombers was a tight affair with scoring starting in the top of the 1st. Forest Hills opened the game, walk, steal, single, steal, walk, RBI walk before Parker Tse settled down and retired the next three batters without any additional damage. The bottom of the 1st saw the Nine respond immediately with Quincy Bright drawing a walk before stealing 2nd and 3rd. Jose Reyes then singled him home. Forest Hills would score again in the 2nd inning. With 1 out, they reached on error and then stole a base, before flaring a ball into center with 2 outs that scored a run to make it 2-1. In the bottom of the 2nd, the Nine threatened with Josh Huerta reaching on an error, Jesse Oyala walking and Parker Tse walking to load the bases with 2 outs. But the Nine could not punch the run home when Kai McCoy popped out to 2nd base to end the threat. In the bottom of the 3rd with 1 out, Jose Reyes hit a line drive single to right and then immediately stole 2nd base. Anthony De Leon followed that up with a game tying line drive single to center. Miguel Sime hit a hard grounder to short scoring De Leon putting the Nine up 3-2. The top of the 4th saw the Bombers tie the score when they opened the inning against Oyala with a ground ball single to shortstop, followed by a walk, a walk and a run scoring HBP. Oyala got out the inning without further damage by getting a quick 3 pitch strikeout and then induced a double play. . The bottom of the 4th saw the Nine leave Oyala and Tse on the bathpaths after they walked and singled, respectively. The top of the 5th saw the Bombers put some guys on base but the rally was ended when De Leon impressively picked a runner of 3rd to end the threat. The bottom of the 5th saw Jose Reyes single, steal 2nd followed by De Leon and Sime walks to load the bases. Unfortunately, the rally ended there as did the game in a 3-3 tie.

The final game of pool play for the Borough Cup saw the Nine play Elmjack. The first 4 innings pitchers dominated and the score was 0-0. The top of the 5th opened with a Quincy Bright fly ball double to left. Bright quickly stole 3rd and scored on a Jose Reyes ground out putting the Nine up 1-0. In the top of the 6th, Oyala drew a one out walk and then promptly stole 2nd and 3rd. After a strikeout, Kai McCoy smoked a grounder through the left side scoring Oyala to put the Nine up 2-0. After a 5 inning, 5 strikeout, 1 hit, 0 run performance by Jesse Oyala, Jose Reyes came in and struck out the side to end the game, win the pool and secure the 4th overall seed.

In the first playoff game vs Elmjack, the Nine got out to a quick lead in the bottom of the first. Quincy Bright singled on a ground ball to right and then stole 2nd and 3rd. With 2 outs, Anthony De Leon singled him home to put the Nine up 1-0. In the top of the 2nd, Elmjack tied the score at 1 with a 2 out bases loaded infield RBI single to 3rd. In the bottom of the 2nd, Kai McCoy lined a single to center and then stole 2nd. With 2 outs, Quincy Bright laced a single to center scoring McCoy. After 2 more scoreless innings, Miguel Sime led off the 4th with a single. He then swiped 2nd and 3rd and scored the 3rd run of the game via error by the opposing catcher. In the same inning, with 2 outs, Jesse Oyala doubled on a line drive to right and with Parker Tse up, Oyala stole 3rd and in a daring move, stole home, giving the Nine their 4th and final run of the game. Elmjack scored a 2 out run in the top of the 6th, but it was too little and too late, giving the Nine a 4-2 win and moving on to the Semi-Finals.

In the Semi-Finals, the Nine played the Staten Island Vikings. Miguel Sime struck out eight of the first nine batters he faced. The scoring opened for the Nine in the top of the 4th when Jose Reyes hit an inside the park home run on a line drive to right field putting the Nine up 1-0. The bottom of the 4th saw Sime get into a little bit of trouble with 2 walks and a single, but he got through it striking out 3 opposing hitters without allowing a run. Jesse Oyala had a 2 out single to left in the top of the 5th. He stole 2nd on a 1-1 count before scoring on a Parker Tse ground ball single up the middle to put the Nine up 2-0. Sime started the top of the 5th, but got into trouble after a strikeout by waking back to back batters. The Nine went to Jose Reyes to stem the tide, but after an RBI ground out, the Vikings hit a 2 out ground ball single to center to tie the game at 2. Neither team scored in the 6th and the game went into extra innings. Anthony De Leon led off the 7th with a line drive single bringing up Miguel Sime. Sime took the first pitch and hit a monster shot well beyond the left field fence to give the Nine the 4-2 lead. Not content, Giovanni Bausone singled to center, stole 2nd and 3rd and scored on a Parker Tse line drive single to right. Tse stole 2nd on the first pitch and on a 2-2 count, Kai McCoy singled in Tse on a line drive single to left. The Vikings would not go down without a fight. The first batter of the inning took some close pitches and walked on a full count. Reyes then struck out the 2nd and 3rd batter on 3 pitches each, putting the Nine one out away from a date at MCU Park and the Borough Cup Finals. The next batter again battled to 3-2 before walking, giving the Vikings 1st and 2nd with 2 out. They would get a quick single to load the bases before flying out to center to end the game. Miguel Sime fanned 12 in 4.2 innings and blasted a mammoth 2 run home run in extras advancing the Cubs to MCU.

After a rainout on the original date, the team came to the Finals ready to play vs Brooklyn Blue Storm at MCU Park, home of the New York Mets single A affiliate, Brooklyn Cyclones. The game, originally slated to start at 6, was delayed by an hour and a half for rain. This didn’t matter to starter Miguel Sime, who came out firing wowing many in attendance including former Met closer John Franco. and wowed everyone. Sime’s only blemish in six frames was a single walk. Of the 18 batters he retired, an amazing 14 fanned in the dominant performance. Offensively, the Nine got multiple runners on but struggled to bring them home. The best opportunity to score runs came in the top of the 2nd when Miguel Sime led off with a single and stole 2nd base. Gio Bausone lined a single into center where Sime was thrown out at home plate. On the same play, Bausone was trying to advance to 3rd on the throw, but was narrowly tagged out for the double play. In the top of the 4th with 2 outs, Anthony De Leon singled on a fly ball to center and advanced to 2nd on an error. Miguel Sime followed that up with a single to 3rd, giving the Nine 1st and 3rd with 2 outs, but Bausone struck out swinging. Both pitchers pitched well, giving each other nothing until the top of the 10th when Aidan Colasante led off with a line drive single to left and then stole 2nd. De Leon advanced him to 3rd on a ground out to 2nd. Miguel Sime gets intentionally walked and steals 2nd on a 1-2 count. After a Bausone strikeout, Ayala walked giving the Nine the bases juiced with 2 outs. On an 0-2 count, on the throw back to the pitcher, Colasante tried to steal home and the run, but was tagged out by an alert pitcher and catcher, ending the threat. In the bottom of the 10th, with 1 out, Brooklyn singled on a line drive to right field and Sime tried to throw the batter out at 1st, but the ball skipped past the 1B right to the De Leon who was backing up the throw. The runner took off to 2nd and De Leon threw it to the SS who tagged the runner for the out, except the umpire ruled the runner’s hand got around the tag and to the base, thus ruling him safe and giving the Blue Storm a man on 2nd with 1 out. The next batter grounded out to 1st moving the runner to 3rd leaving the winning on 3rd with 2 outs. Oyala got the count to 1-2 when he threw a fastball up above the letters and he hit a ground ball to center field pushing the winning run across and ending the Championship hopes for the Nine.

We’ll leave you with these words from Borough Cup Managing Director, Ben Pinczewski, who said this about our team: “During last night’s Borough Cup finals at MCU Ballpark I saw something aside from 3 great competitive games that really struck me. In arguably the best played game in Borough Cup history which was a scoreless tie going into the bottom of the tenth inning there was a controversial call at second base. The runner was called out and many on the field and in the stands thought the umpire missed the call. The head coach protested as he had every right to and appealed for the other umpire to overrule the call. All his protests were rejected and the call stood. He never used bad language, never made any vulgar gestures and certainly never threatened the umpire in any manner. After that controversial call there was a base hit and the winning run came home. His team lost a heartbreaker. Yet, he never complained, instead while clearly disappointed he congratulated everyone on the other team and encouraged and consoled his players. No one could have set a better example for his kids, their parents and everyone in attendance. I had the privilege of watching him coach and see his team play several times this year and each and every time he made me really happy that we have this tournament and we get to work with people like him.”

We couldn’t be prouder of how our coaches and players handle themselves on and off the field.

More to come…