South Brunswick Post 401's Season Ends in State Final 8

There's no telling how much a couple of off days would have meant to the South Brunswick Post 401 American Legion Baseball team. Manager Monty Forthun certainly wishes he could have found out, though.

Playing in the state final eight, South Brunswick lost two times in less than 24 hours to be eliminated from the event. The second loss was 11-1 to Mount Laurel on July 27 at Moody Field in Ewing.

After playing five times in five days -- including twice on Sunday -- to qualify for the state final eight, South Brunswick only had one day off to prepare for New Jersey's final tournament of the year.

"We left it all out on the field over the weekend," Forthun said. "We were kind of going on fumes. We could have really used a few days to rest up for the final eight."

Instead, after playing a doubleheader on Sunday, South Brunswick opened play in the final eight with a 7-5 loss to Park Ridge on Tuesday. That was followed by the loss to Mount Laurel on Wednesday morning.

"I don't want to take anything away from Mount Laurel because they are an excellent team," Forthun said. "They are a good team that should do well in the tournament."

Mount Laurel limited South Brunswick to just four hits. Ariel Torres doubled in the sixth and scored on a single by Kevin Mayce. Mike Huber and Dom Forcella also had hits.

"The biggest problem is that after playing 27 innings over the weekend, we had no pitching left," Forthun said. "It was pitching by committee today (Wednesday). We were trying to get as much as we could out of any pitcher. It was just a difficult situation."

How bad?

"There are guys on the team that work," Forthun said. "After we qualified for the final eight on Sunday, they couldn't just call up their jobs on Monday and say we made the states and they needed the rest of the week off."

Add in family vacations and other commitments, and South Brunswick had 11 players available for its game on Tuesday.

"There is a rule that if you don't have at least twelve players on your team, you forfeit the game and are done for the tournament," Forthun said. "We called up two Junior American Legion players just so we would be allowed to play the game. We wanted to get them into the game, but it was just too close (7-5 loss to Park Ridge)."

Unfortunately, South Brunswick just had to play out the schedule it was given. Off days would have been great. A full team would have been great. A rested team would have been great. That just didn't happen.

"Major league teams may play every day, but they have 20 men on the roster," Forthun said. "We're not used to this. There is no question in my mind that we were running on fumes there at the end.

"We gave it everything we had. We left it all out on the field. We peaked at the districts on Sunday. No quesion about that. We had nothing left after that."