Mets once again come out on top in Cal Ripken League

The Mets again wear the crown of the Brick American youth baseball league. With the program switching from Little League to Cal Ripken for this season, the Mets have won four of the last five titles and wrapped up their second straight title early last week with an 11-7 victory over the Brewers in the final game of their best-of-three series. The Mets celebrated with a party on Sunday night.

"It was a game we never expected," said manager Jeff O'Neill. "We won the first [playoff championship] game 12-10, and then lost the second one 4-3 when the Brewers rallied for the winning run in the final inning. After the first game, the Brewers could've packed it in and after the second game my team could've packed it in. And then, when we went up 10-2 in the third game, Alan Bank was pitching a great game and the Brewers could've packed it in and instead came back with five runs in the fifth inning to pull to 10-7. It shows that they were a very good team and these were two very good teams in the finals. It was one of the best championship series in my 11 years here."

Bank pitched into the sixth inning for the win over Andrew Jarvic. Corey Wademan belted a three-run home run in the first inning, and the Mets added six more in the third, highlighted by Brian Henry's two-run double, for the 10-2 lead. Henry finished with three hits on the day and Bank had two.

That's when the Brewers battled back in the fifth inning with three walks, a tworun single by Chris Lopez, who had two hits in the game, and a run-scoring single by Harry Eaton.

Drew Scott chipped in two hits for the Mets, who finished 20-5 with their second straight league title.