With Kioko Starring on the Mound and at the Plate, Princeton Repeats as District 12 Intermediate Champs
After the Princeton Little League (PLL) team defeated Millstone-Roosevelt 15-3 last Thursday to win its second straight District 12 Intermediate 50/70 title, Ben Kioko saw the repeat performance as exemplifying the squad’s maturity.
“I think it just shows that we have really grown from our first year being 11s to now,” said pitcher/third baseman Kioko, a rising eighth grader at John Witherspoon School.
“In our last year as 13s, we have gotten really better; we have improved. We have been able to take it home twice.”
In the title game, Kioko showed his improvement on the mound and at the plate. Starting the game at pitcher, Kioko went four innings and gave up two runs before being relieved by Judd Petrone for the fifth and final inning in a game shortened by the 10-run rule. He contributed two hits and four RBIs to the offense, batting in the cleanup spot.
“The curve ball was really effective and I liked how the fastball had a lot of speed,” said Kioko, reflecting on his pitching effort which saw him strike out four and give up three hits.
“I was being quite accurate. I don’t think I wasted too many pitches. I like the fact that I could come up and get the two RBIs in the first inning and then come back on the mound and get outs.”
Kioko likes the unity the team has developed over the years. “I think camaraderie is a strength,” said Kioko. “We are well mended; we work together a lot.”
Showing its power and strength, PLL broke open the game with a seven-run fourth inning.
“It was the long ball that got us going,” said manager Jon Durbin. “The other day it was Ben Amon hitting a homer and today it was Jake Renda who smoked that one out by the batting cages. He is a 12-year-old and he is a big boy for being a 12-year- old. I think you can tell our team is pretty big physically compared to the other teams.”
Princeton also benefitted from the big pitching effort provided by Kioko. “I think he has got a really good fastball, he is one of the hardest throwers around for this age group,” said Durbin referring to Kioko.
“He has developed a nice curve, slurve pitch. There are four guys on the Millstone team that can really hit the ball and we had talked to him before the game about the importance of not just throwing them a lot of fastballs, even their first time up which normally you would just challenge them. You need to mix it up and not just try to overpower them.”
Kioko complemented his mound work with some powerful hitting. “His swing is good and fundamentally sound, he really hits the ball hard,” said Durbin.
“That one hit was a ground ball through the infield that went all the way to the fence.”
Durbin was proud to see his team go all the way to a District 12 title for a second straight year.
“It is a big deal and we are honored to do it,” said Durbin, reflecting his team’s encore performance.
“I think knowing that the team is so senior and so experienced that, for us, we really have our eye on winning the sectionals.”
With PLL hosting the Section 3 tourney at Farmview starting on July 3, Durbin believes his team has to play even sharper in order to prevail in that competition.
“When we start playing in the sectionals, the level of the game is going to increase several notches,” said Durbin.
“There is going to be a lot more speed and power. We will adjust the practices. In batting practice, the ball is going to be coming in a lot faster. When we do infield and outfield, we will be hitting the balls a lot harder to the infielders and we will be hitting fly balls that are a lot higher and deeper so they get adjusted to navigate that kind of stuff. So that is the game plan on top of what we normally do in terms of building the team camaraderie and unity to get things going.”
Durbin is confident that his players are up to the challenge. “I think they are into it, they want to go the distance,” said Durbin. “I think they really sense that they have the potential to go some places and get down the road.”
Kioko, for his part, believes that Princeton can go the distance. “I think we just need to take a very serious approach and not make any mental errors,” said Kioko.
“Physical errors are going to happen but we have got to be sharp mentally. I think we could definitely make it past sectionals.”