By JOE O’GORMAN
jogorman@trentonian.com
HAMILTON – It’s déjà vu all over again for the Montgomery Babe Ruth League 13-year old all stars.
It opened the District One tournament with a win over Hamilton and to keep its title hopes alive it going to have to repeat the effort.
Montgomery became one of the four teams still standing in the tourney with a 13-0 five-inning win over Western Monmouth last night in an elimination game played on the Trenton Babe Ruth field.
The Cougars rallied in the sixth inning to take a 10-9 win over Hamilton in the first game of the tourney and the two will tangle again tomorrow at 8:30 p.m. on the Trenton field in another elimination game.
We are excited about playing Hamilton again,” said Montgomery manager Frank Kimick. “They are a great team and anything can happen. We have played a lot of close games with them. We have a lot of respect for them and it’ll be a great game.”
The game will follow the winner’s bracket final at 6 p.m. between Nottingham and Trenton. 
Montgomery did enough damage in the second inning when it plated six runs and the arms of Matt Ryan and Vikram Avancha as they spun a two-hitter shutout to make the just one run enough.
“I felt good on the mound and we were fielding the ball,” said Ryan, who also had three hits at the plate. “We have to know that we belong here and if we put out mind to it we can do anything.”
Jacob Frisch, who was batting out of the ninth spot and had two hits, had a big two-run double in the frame and Joey LaVake, who had three hits including a triple, added a two-run single in the second.  
“I was feeling it and stroking the ball,” said LaVake. “I was hitting good in practice. We have to know we can use the fundamentals we can hit any ball. The runs gave us some breathing room and it calmed us down a little bit.”
Avancha and Joey Demato also had RBI safeties in the inning.
They settled things in the fifth putting up a five-spot to reach 13. LaVake, Ryan,  Avancha and Demato all had safeties. The Cougars took advantage of a few Western Monmouth miscues to put the game out of reach.
“We came out great,” said Kimick. “The bats were alive. We made the adjustments to the pitchers speed and we hit the ball.”
Only four remain with the top-two finishers headed to the Southern New Jersey State Tournament in Gibbsboro-Voorhees.
But, first there is another look at Hamilton.
“We have to come ready to play,” Ryan said of the meeting. “We have a little confidence from the last time.”
Now, they will be asked to do it again.