BRINGING HIS A-GAME: A.J. Surace takes a big cut in District 12 playoff action last summer. Last week, Surace, the son of Princeton University football head coach Bob Surace, starred on the mound and at the plate for the Princeton Little League’s (PLL) 10-year-old all-star squad as it went 1-2 in District 12 competition. PLL started the tourney by defeating Millstone-Roosevelt 11-7 and then fell 13-10 to Lawrence last Thursday and 19-6 to Robbinsville two days later to get eliminated from the tournament. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

After rolling to an 11-7 win over Millstone-Roosevelt in its opening game of the District 12 tournament play, the Princeton Little League (PLL) 10-year-old all-star squad ran into some adversity when it faced Lawrence last Thursday evening.

PLL found itself trailing 8-2 heading into the bottom of the fourth inning.

But rather than hanging their heads, the team started chipping away at the deficit.

“We dug ourselves into a little bit of hole with some great hitting by Lawrence and some mistakes by us,” said PLL head coach Larry Granozio. “They didn’t get down on themselves, they stayed positive.”

Turning the six-inning contest into a 2-hour, 20-minute marathon, PLL scored three runs in the fifth to cut the lead to 11-6 and then added four more runs in the bottom of the next inning but its rally fell short in a 13-10 defeat.

True to form, the PLL players never lost faith in themselves. “The kids had the rally caps on,” noted a smiling Granozio, reflecting on the last two innings of the contest.

“We weren’t allowed to change our spaces in the dugout. We were trying hard, we were fighting back.”

PLL got some bigs hits from Nico Vitaro, Alex Winters, A.J. Surace, Dylan Gregson, and Alex Winters in piling up seven runs over the last two innings.

“We have a lot of good balance in the lineup, it is hard to pick who plays and who doesn’t and when to hit them and when not to hit them,” added Granozio.

“We are trying to mix it up as best we can but under the rules of Districts, only nine are hitting. We could have 13 hitting and be happy. It is a challenge to balance them all from top to bottom. All of them are excited to be up there and all of them can do damage at the plate.”

While PLL did some more damage at the plate on Saturday it came up short in falling 19-6 to Robbinsville to get eliminated from the competition.

“I think when we have six innings we can get runs,” said Granozio. “Sometimes it takes us a full six and sometimes we get them earlier than that. The team is very positive. There is a lot of energy and a lot of laughs.”