By GEORGE O’GORMAN
gogorman@trentonian.com
HAMILTON — Christian Waters went into the final inning of Tuesday night’s District One Babe Ruth
Tournament battle of the unbeatens having struck out 11 batters and given up one hit.
But he found his West Windsor-Plainsboro 15-year old all-star team trailing Western Monmouth by two runs.
Walks can do that to a pitcher, even one who was as dominating at times as Waters was at Switlik
Park.
“I didn’t have my best control, and I put myself behind with all the walks, but my team bailed me
out,” said Waters, who finished with 14 strikeouts and seven walks and also was the winning pitcher
when WW-P rallied for four runs in its last at bat to emerge with a 5-3 victory over Western
Monmouth.
In one of the best pitched games of this District 15s tournament, but also one of the wackiest, WW-P
stayed unbeaten at 4-0 and moved into tomorrow’s championship round where it will await the survivor
of tonight’s 7 p.m. elimination bracket final between WeMo and host Hamilton.
Last Saturday, WeMo dealt Hamilton its only loss in the tourney, 3-1, but Hamilton is still alive
after eliminating Nottingham, 4-2, in last night’s first game. The Hamilton/WeMo rematch will be
broadcast on WRRC ‘The Bronc’ (107.7 FM) starting with The Trentonian Pregame Show at 6:45 p.m.
“We were kind of down going into that last inning, then Sean (O’Brien) got a big hit to get us going,
and I got a hit, and we felt we could come back,” said Waters, a junior at WW-P North High who also
pitches for the WW-P American Legion team that leads the Mercer County League.
O’Brien got the winning rally going with a single down the right field line that was just beyond the
reach of WeMo’s Anthony Morrone who dove for the ball at the foul line.
Waters followed with a single off WeMo pitcher Tom Malik’s leg, then Zach Bacall reached on an error as WeMo failed to turn a doubleplay. Justin O’Leary kept it going with a single to score O’Brien.
Minutes later Brandon Kocher and Adam Gostomski had their infield grounders misplayed to let two more runs cross before Dan Borup’s RBI single got the fourth run home as WW-P batted nine in the inning.
“I love games like this. They’re the most fun,” laughed O’Brien, who will probably get the call
tomorrow to face the WeMo/Hamilton winner. “I can’t wait for that one.”
If WW-P wins that game it claims the District One flag, but should it lose, the teams play a second
and deciding game immediately after.
Wednesday night’s winner will join WW-P in the Southern N.J. that Nottingham will host at Veterans Park starting July 20. 
WW-P won the District One title as 13s and last year Hamilton won it as 14s.
“Going into the last inning tonight we hadn’t been hitting so I just tried to get the team psyched,”
added O’Brien. “This whole experience was crazy. We want to win the districts, not go to the states
as runnerup.”
WW-P got to WeMo starter Malik quickly as Kocher singled, Gostomski doubled and Borup’s sac fly
plated the first run. It would be the only run the Princeton Junction team would get until the
seventh. It had only two singles until the seventh, but didn’t run the bases well.
WeMo didn’t have to because Waters’ walks kept producing runs. In the first he gave up his only hit – a single to Craig Sandford around two walks to load the bases, allowing Borup to score on a wild
pitch.
Having gotten his first eight outs on swinging strikeouts, Waters saw two more bases on balls break
the tie in the fifth. That’s when Mike Cackowski walked and came around on two stolen bases and a
wild pitch. Zach Reutsch also walked, advanced on two wild pitches and scored on Sandford’s RBI
groundout.
“I’m not really sure why I had so many walks. That happens to me sometimes when I don’t get my first
pitch over for a strike,” said Waters, who finished strong with three Ks in the seventh. “I knew if I
got my first pitch fastball over I could go to my other stuff. When I didn’t get it over I got in
trouble.”
When the trouble looked worse, Waters and his WW-P mates found a way to survive and move one step closer to the victory they want most of all.
West Windsor-Plainsboro (4-0)    100 000 4 - 5 8 0
Western Monmouth (2-1)    100 020 0 - 3 1 3
WP: Waters. LP: Malik.
2B: WWP - Gostomski, Borup. RBI: WM - C.Sandford; WWP – Borup 2,