Two games into its appearance at the Babe Ruth Baseball World Series in Quincy, Mass., Valley was undefeated, perhaps poised for a championship run.
However, that would be all Valley would win, as it dropped the next three games and fell in the quarterfinal round.
Valley had won the Mid-Atlantic Regional championship on Aug. 5 in Buffalo, rallying with five runs in the bottom of the seventh inning against Broomall-Newton (Pa.) to win the title game 8-7 and completing a 6-0 run through the tournament. Three different times, Valley won by a single run on its way to the title.
Composed of players from the Syracuse, Marcellus, Jamesville-DeWitt, Fayetteville-Manlius, Tully and Westhill school districts, Valley left for the Boston area on Aug. 14 following a week of practice to participate in the biggest tournament of the summer.
In all, 10 teams took part in the Babe Ruth World Series, splitting off into a pair of five-team divisions for pool play. Valley was in the American division. They played at Adams Field, on land donated by Charles Francis Adams, grandson to President John Quincy Adams and great-grandson to another President, John Adams.
In the opener Aug. 16, Valley met West Fargo (N.D.) and pulled off a 3-0 shutout. Following a day of rest, on Aug. 18 Valley made it two-for-two, again using strong pitching to fend off the host team from Quincy in a 7-2 decision.
But the momentum began to dissipate last Tuesday night when Valley ran into Palo Alto (Calif.) and struggled in an 11-4 defeat, followed Wednesday by a 12-1 loss to Tallahassee (Fla.). Both times, Valley had to meet teams accustomed to year-round play, something not possible in Central New York thanks to its winters.
As the brackets worked, the top team in each division automatically advanced to the semifinals, with the second and third-place teams squaring off to see who would join them.
Valley, as the third-place team in the American division, met National division runner-up Nederland (Texas). Here, the bats got shut down as Nederland’s Trent Fontenot threw a one-hit shutout, the 12-0 defeat ending Valley’s title run.
Managed by Greg Monashevsky and coached by Ted McAvoy and Steve Weigl, the Valley team included Jeremy Kidd, Jeremy Mapstone, Kevin McAvoy, Mike Monashevsky, Conor Nolan, William Patrick, Russell Runions, Nicholas Sinay, Jordan Smith, Louis Testone, Marcus Warner, Brooks Weigl, Matt Yonta and Phillip Zdanowski.
