Cape Junior League All Stars fall twice to Newark National in state tournament

The District 2 Newark National team battled out of the losers' bracket to take two games from the Cape All-Stars 8-6 and 13-8 to claim the Delaware state championship and will represent Delaware at the regional tournament next week.

Newark had defeated District 1 Dover 8-2 to set up the July 27 matchup for the championship. Cape had to just win one game to take home the state championship banner.

In the first game, the Cape squad was led by Jason Xiong, who went 2 for 4 and batted in two runs. Austin Elliott and Dave Erickson went 2 for 4 and each knocked in a run. Connor Thompson and Ben Ashby each drove in a run. Luke Mulcahy went 2 for 4 from the plate and Zack Gelof hit two sacrifices.

"We had enough hits," said Cape manager Don Erickson. "We just committed too many costly errors." The Cape team had five errors in the game.

Zack Gelof started on the mound and had four strikeouts with Connor Thompson pitching in relief with two Ks.

The second game found the Cape team's bats staying hot with Gelof slamming a triple and two singles and driving in three runs. Elliott slugged two doubles and drove in two.

David Erickson, Xiong and Ashby each drove in one Cape run.

"Our bats were hot, but errors [four] hurt us again," said Erickson. "I'm extremely happy with our hitting, especially off their good pitchers. Newark is a good hitting team, and they drove their hits into the gaps."

Each game was won with hits in the seventh inning.

Jackson Ostroski, Luke Mulcahy, Reese White and Rick Townsend teamed for four strikeouts for Cape from the mound.