For the first time since 2010, the Links are champions of the Fair Lawn Bnai Brith Softball League.
The Bnai Brith Links are sponsored by Links Residential – Northern New Jersey’s Premiere Real Estate Agency. This proved to be one the most successful seasons for the Links, who finished the regular season with a 10-6 record and allowed the fewest runs in the league.
The championship game of the Links vs. the Golems (a team the Links had already beaten twice this season) was exciting to watch. After neither team scored through the first inning and a half, a two-out double by third baseman Uri Weingarten was followed by a single from catcher Domingo Rodriguez to put the Links up 1-0. A lead-off homerun by the Golems in the top of the third tied the game, but in the bottom of the inning a two-out homerun by second basemen Aharon Schrieber gave the Links a two-run lead.
“We always say ‘it hurts with two [outs]’” said Rodriguez, who coined the phrase during the team’s championship run five years earlier. In Sunday’s championship game the Links scored five of their six runs with two outs.
Another homerun by the Golems in the 4th brought the score to 3-2, but the Links answered back again with two outs when right fielder Covey Schnipper sent a sinking line into left field to drive in first baseman Steve Galarza. The Golems then scored three runs in the top of the sixth inning to take a 5-4 lead.
“It was the first time we were behind in a game in the entire playoffs, but I knew we would bounce back,” said Moshe Zharnest, a backup pitcher for the Links who was the winning pitcher when the team won in 2010, and also the founder and captain of the team. The Links won their first three playoff games by defeating the Axemen 12-8; the Golems 10-2; the Moyals 12-1.
With runners on first and third and two outs in the sixth inning, the Golems were threatening to blow the game open. On a full count, catcher Tony Segui, who came in as a defensive replacement in the fifth inning, caught a perfectly thrown pitch from Ortiz on the outside corner of the plate for strike three to end the inning.
Outfielder Andrew Paris led off the bottom of the 6th with a game tying homerun. After a double by left fielder Victor Arroyo, Zharnest elected to send Dave Cevallos to the plate to pinch-hit for Weingarten, who had two hits on the day. The gutsy decision paid off, as Cevallos hit a clutch two-out line drive single into left field to give the Links a one-run lead.
With just that single run lead, the Links shut-down the Golems in the top of the 7th. Jeremy Berman, who patrolled the outfield all season and tracked down fly ball after fly ball during the championship game, settled under a short pop-up in left-center field for the final out of the game. The team mobbed Ortiz on the mound to celebrate their second championship in five years.
Players for the Links throughout the season (though unable to play in the championship) are left fielder Eddie Young, out fielder Joe Goldstein, infielder Chezzy Jesin, pitcher Willie Perez, outfielder Ophir Eis and pitcher Oren Hiller. Zachary Schrieber is the starting shortstop for the team.
