Chatham Baseball Makes its Own History as Delbarton Wins its Fifth Straight Morris County Tournament Behind 3-Time MVP Dill

MONTVILLE, NJ -- Chatham's reward for clawing its way from the No. 12 seed to the Morris County Tournament championship game for the first time in school history? A meeting with Delbarton, the No. 1 ranked team in the state, and its standout pitcher, Aiden Dill.

The Green Wave pried open a scoreless pitching duel between Chatham's Wes Maksimow and Dill by scoring an unearned run without a base hit in the fifth and went on to win its fifth straight MCT title on Thursday night at Montville High.

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Delbarton (22-2) has won 10 MCT championships overall. Chatham (7-10) is still looking for its first.

Senior left-hander Dill allowed just two singles over his six shutout innings and left the field with his third straight Morris County Tournament MVP Award while Chatham returned home with the second-place plaque.

"As much as you hate a second-place plaque, it's something you can appreciate, what it took to get there, how they battled," Todd Leathers , Chatham coach, said. "I was proud as hell of the guys. It's something Chatham has never done before.

"Overall, Aiden Dill threw a helluva game. We put some swings on him and put together tremendous at-bats of 8, and 9 pitches. We just didn't seem to find the barrel when we needed to."

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At the start of the game, anything seemed possible for Chatham with Maksimow on the mound since his performance last Saturday in the Cougars' 8-1 upset over top-seeded Morris Knolls, ranked No.4 in the state at the time. The junior right-hander matched zeroes with Dill through four innings, striking out six, walking three and allowing three hits.

In the third, Maksimow walked three batters, but struck out the side and notched his sixth and final strikeout to end the inning with the bases loaded. He gave up one-out double in the fourth before keeping it scoreless with two ground balls. Leathers pulled Maksimow after he threw 82 pitches in his four innings.

"Wes has obviously been a workhorse for us over the last couple of games," Leathers said. "As a coaching staff we sit there and we kind of see a number for him. They put together great at-bats. He battled. He made some great pitches. It was just time. He did a tremendous job and it was time to move on. I have all the faith in the world in Trent (Jenks)."

Jenks went from catcher to the pitcher's mound for Chatham in the bottom of the fifth and got ahead of Delbarton's leadoff batter Matt Tafuri before walking him on a close 3-2 pitch. A stolen base coupled with two errors and Delbarton was able to take a 1-0 lead without the benefit of a base hit.

Kyle Ruddy's single in the second and Jack Tunny's single in the third were the only hits Chatham could muster against Dill, who struck out seven and did not walk a batter. After Tunny's single, Dill retired 12 in a row before Christian Zebrowski came on and struck out the final three batters in the seventh for Delbarton.

"The seniors have shown great leadership in turning around our season that started out 2-7. We want to play these games," Leathers said. "We play the best in the state, so when it comes to state tournament time, we're ready to go. Now it's about getting ready for the state run."

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