Brick American squad wins a league championship

Pitching may win games, but Kevin "Mo" Morris of Brick American’s 13-14-year-old Junior League team believes scoring a lot of runs wins championships.

"It’s hitting. We have a lot of hitters," said Morris of the Red Sox winning its fourth straight league title. "We averaged 12 runs a game so we won by outscoring a lot of teams."

The Red Sox batted a collective .340.

Perhaps the most amazing statistic in their run to a 10-4 regular season and a 4-0 streak during the playoffs is stolen bases. The team had 145 of them, eight a game. Matt Brain had 32.

"Yeah, we have speed, too," said Morris.

The defense wasn’t always there, and that proved costly to the team after a 6-0 start. By the end of the season, the team was back in sync as it won playoff games over the Orioles, 5-1, and the Yankees, 5-4, and swept its best-of-three league championship series over the White Sox, 11-7 and 15-5.

"In the playoffs, we played a lot better defense," said Morris. "That’s one area where we struggled, but we picked that up at the end. Usually we’d hit the ball to overcome our errors."

Center fielder Matt Freeman led the way, batting .532 in the No. 3 spot and winning five games as the No. 1 pitcher.

Catcher Vin Falkiewicz batted in 25 runs as the cleanup hitter.

Tom Lawler lined 13 doubles, while Nick Anderson batted .400 and Tom Murray and Steve Turner got some timely hits batting in the lower part of the order.

"I knew we would do well with the kids I had. Not necessarily winning it all, but at least reaching the championship final," said Morris.

— Wayne Witkowski