Toms River, N.J., First U.S. Champ Since ’93

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. —  Nobody paid much attention to Chris Cardone before Saturday.

But the outfielder who was one for 10 going into the biggest game of his 12-year-old life stole the spotlight, hitting home runs in consecutive at-bats--including a game-deciding two-run shot--as Toms River, N.J., won its first Little League World Series with a 12-9 victory over Kashima, Japan.

“It was a curve ball. When it hit the bat, I knew it was gone,” Cardone said of the game-winner.

“Timing’s a beautiful thing,” said Toms River Manager Mike Gaynor, whose team went 1-2 in the 1995 World Series. “He just came through for us today.”

But Cardone’s heroics wouldn’t have mattered without pitcher Todd Frazier, who hit the third pitch of the game over the left-field wall. He finished the game by holding the Japanese to two hits over the final two innings and striking out the last batter to end a game in which 11 balls cleared the fences, including three solo shots by Kashima’s Tetsuya Furukawa and two by Tatsuya Sugata.

Frazier’s teammates leaped on top of him as the crowd full of New Jersey fans celebrated wildly, then the players waved their hats during a victory lap.

“I was really scared because their hitters were coming up and I thought they were going to hit one off me, but I pitched it low and they didn’t,” Frazier said, holding his home run ball.

In the final inning, he held Furukawa to a single and struck out Sugata. Frazier went four for four and finished the series with a .600 average and four homers. He won two games and gave up only three runs in eight innings.

Sayaka Tsushima, the sixth girl to play in a World Series and the first from a Far East champion, was the first girl to play in a final. She was hitless in three at-bats.

Toms River, which finished 5-0, is the first World Series champion from New Jersey since Lakewood’s 4-3 victory over Belmont Heights, Tampa, Fla., in 1975 and the first American winner since Long Beach in 1993.

For Mike Gaynor, it was doubly special. He felt the disappointment when his son, Colin, and the 1995 team won only one game. This time, he saw his son hit a homer, win a game on the mound and leave a champion.

“For anybody to get here is difficult,” Gaynor said. “And to have two. . . .”

Toms River, after twice losing leads, scored four runs in the top of the sixth inning as Cardone broke out of his slump. Gabe Gardner, whose two fifth-inning errors helped Japan tie the game, 8-8, drove in two runs with a single to make it 12-8.