PERFECT STORM: Teddy Durbin of the Princeton Little League (PLL) squad takes a swing in Intermediate 50/70 tournament action. Last Friday, Durbin was the starting pitcher and combined with Jake Renda and Jackson Rho to produce a perfect game as Princeton beat Metuchen 13-0 in five innings in its opening game at the Section 3 tournament. Durbin and PLL went on to top Middletown 6-1 on Saturday and Ocean Township 5-2 on Sunday to advance to the final round of the double elimination tournament. Princeton is next in action on July 9 at Farmview Field, needing one win to clinch the sectional title. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

Teddy Durbin’s pregame preparation helped pave the way for a spectacular pitching effort as the Princeton Little League (PLL) squad hosted Metuchen last Friday in the opener of the Section 3 Intermediate 50/70  tournament.

“I like to watch the teams in their batting cages when they warm up and I saw that they weren’t really catching up to some fastballs so I focused on pounding the plate,” said Durbin, a rising ninth grader headed to Princeton High. “I would mix in a few changeups and curveballs in there if I needed to.”

Durbin retired all five batters he faced, striking out four before being lifted after 22 pitches to preserve his availability under the tournament pitch limits. Jake Renda relieved Durbin and then Jackson Rho came on to close out the game. Both Renda and Rho retired every hitter they faced giving the PLL a five-inning perfect game as it rolled to a 13-0 win in a game shortened by the 10-run mercy rule.

While Durbin was proud to take part in the perfect game, the main emphasis was on how the team took care of business collectively.

“It is pretty exciting but I think we are mainly focused on powering through right now and just trying to win games,” said lefty Durbin. “It was really important and we just wanted to get this one done.”

Getting it done at the plate, Durbin contributed two hits as Princeton jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the first inning and never looked back.

“It felt pretty good today,” said Durbin. “The team looked pretty good overall swinging the bat.”

Durbin’s father, PLL manager Jon Durbin, felt very good about the pitching effort he got in the opener.

“The pitchers were totally on today and I think the whole pitching staff right now is understanding the concept that when you play in Little League international tournaments, it is incredibly important to be efficient,” said manager Durbin.

“You don’t want to get into deep pitch counts because these games are so stacked on top of each other. Teddy got us going right out of the gate. He powered through the first four or five guys in the lineup followed by Jake Renda who came in and did the same thing and then Jackson Rho shut them down at the end.”

Princeton showed plenty of hitting power with Ben Kioko blasting a homer well over the left field fence in the second inning to highlight an attack which saw Judd Petrone and Cameron Gray contribute run-scoring doubles.

“The thing we focused on in practice this week to get them ready for the tournament was that we did all the batting practice on the field with live pitching,” said Durbin.

“We didn’t do any substantial hitting in the cages this week. We wanted them to see live pitching so it was a combination of teammates actually going live and pitching to them as well as graduates from the program who came back, who were older and could throw harder with other kinds of breaking balls. Last night they had a great hitting practice and it just worked beautifully for us. You could see that their bats were really dialed in.”

PLL continued to be dialed in the rest of the weekend, topping Middletown 6-1 on Saturday and then beating Ocean Township 5-2 on Sunday.

In the win over Middletown, Teddy Durbin produced another sterling mound effort, giving up no runs on three hits with 11 strikeouts in six innings of work. The offense was triggered by leadoff hitter Ben Petrone, who went 1-for-3 with a double and an RBI, and Kioko who went 2-for-3 with a homer and three RBIs.

Against Ocean, Rho pitched superbly, going 5 1/3 innings, giving up two runs and two hits with eight strikeouts and two hits. Kioko hit a two-run homer in the first inning to get the PLL offense going. In the top of the seventh, Durbin, Rho Gautam Chalwa had RBIs to account for PLL’s final three runs.

The wins over the weekend advanced PLL to the final round of the double elimination tournament. Princeton is next in action on July 9 at Farmview Field, needing one win to clinch the sectional title.

“We are very excited to advance to the sectional finals,” said manager Durbin.  “No PLL Team has ever gotten this far, but we are not satisfied with just getting to the finals. We’ll stick with the approach that has been serving us well in practices with increasing the power and the speed of all our drills. All of the pitchers will be rested and ready to go come Thursday, so we are in a good place right now as the only undefeated team and with such strong, well-rested pitching.”

In the view of the younger Durbin, the lessons learned from getting knocked out of last year’s sectional has served PLL well this summer as it goes for the title.

“We are definitely more experienced this year,” said Durbin. “Last year, it was pretty obvious that we were nervous coming out in the first game but this year we are feeling comfortable on our home field.”