ROTARY 0 0 0 0 2 2 -- 4 11 0
ELKS 0 0 0 0 0 0 -- 0 2 2
W - Pollara
L - JVanderveer
HR - Pollara
Big Frank Pollara pitched the title-winning Rotary Club nine of the National division of the Rutherford Little League to a 4-0 victory over the Elks, American champions, in a game played last Thursday evening at Rutherford Field for the local Little League championship.
The right to represent Rutherford in the North Jersey Little League Tournament sponsored by the Passaic Herald-News also went to the winners, who will meet Vicky’s, East Rutherford’s representative, in the tournament’s opening round at Riggin Field on August 28.
The local championship game was a tense, well-played affair which found Pollara and Johnny Vanderveer hooked up in scoreless pitching duel over four full innings. Pollara himself broke the ice in the top of the fifth with a bases-empty homer. Billy Tantum, Jack Kreiling and Leonard Baylor followed with successive singles which scored an insurance run.
The newly crowned champions hooked up a double by Jojo Gusera and singles by Bob Dionisio and Tantum with a pair of Elks bobbles to pack the game away on two more tallies in the sixth.
The Elks, who murdered American League hurling throughout the regular season, were able to manage but two hits off Pollara’s fast ball, a double by Morty Lefkowitz and Phil Place’s single.
Meanwhile, a Rotary club which played errorless ball afield climbed on Vanderveer, 5-0 during the regular American League season, for 11 bingles, including a home run and a double. Gusera, Pollara, Tantum and Baylor each contributed a pair of safeties to the winners’ attack.
The win was the ninth of the season for the Rotary ace, who notched tournament victories over both East Rutherford and Carlstadt in addition to his series victory over the American League.