The East Brunswick 12U Xtreme girls softball team took second place in the Union County Umpires Softball Tournament this past weekend. After leaving Saturday with a 1-1 record, the girls came back to Union Sunday determined to spend the day. The Xtreme topped the Stamford, Conn., All Stars, 8-5, with their bats coming alive in a five-run, two-out rally in the fifth inning. The team next faced the Jackson Renegades, from whom they had received a sound beating the day before. The girls battled, on both offense and defense, until the last out was made, and won the nail-biter 8-7. Unfortunately, the Xtreme fell to a tough Tripp Park, Pa., team in the championship game. The Xtreme pitchers are Sara Gunia, Beth Ann Hyland, Sam Lang and Christina Naviello. Completing the battery this weekend for all games was catcher Tyler Habib. The infield was well manned by Sarah Blank at first, Gabby Siryj at second, Tori Oliva at shortstop, and Jen Klein at third base. Completing the team are the golden gloves of Sam Eppel, Alex Fleming and Paige Oberle in the outfield. This is the girls' third second-place finish in tournament play this season.

The Spotswood 9-year-old all-star team has won its second tournament of the summer season, the 2006 Milltown 9U Tournament. They beat an undefeated Metuchen team by the score of 8-2 in the championship game on July 19 in Milltown. In winning the title, Spotswood bounced back from an opening-game 4-0 loss to Milltown to beat North Brunswick, 10-4, before losing to Milltown again, 2-1. Spotswood then beat East Brunswick, 14-2, to get into the playoffs, where they finally beat Milltown, 3-1, before knocking off Metuchen in the final.

The players are Nicholas Catananzi, Jack Dalrymple, Brandon Daniel, Matt Dwyer, Stephen Faulkenberry, Chase Fee, Nicholas Garifalos, Tyler Licata, Nicholas LoGatto, Christopher Marlow, Shawn Quibell and Jeff Szatkowski.

The team manager is Jeff Szatkowski, while the coaches are Kevin Fee, Ron Dalrymple, Pete Marlow, Rob Dwyer and Jim Licata. Team mom is Kim Szatkowski.

The Spotswood team began its third tournament of the summer season last night in Sayreville against Little Silver.

After a heartbreaking 4-2 loss to Woodbridge Black on Sunday in a Middlesex County Junior American Legion playoff game, Monroe came back to win the best-of-three series with back-to-back wins over Woodbridge over the next two days. The only highlight from Sunday's game was Ryan Clark's two-run double in the third inning. On Monday night, John Schieda pitched six and one-third innings, giving up two runs. Joe Williams started the Monroe offense with a two-run double in the first inning. Andy Sullivan hit a bases-clearing double in the fourth to give Monroe a 7-0 lead. Monroe won by a final score of 8-5. Tuesday was win or go home for both teams. Andy Sullivan pitched five shutout innings for Monroe with some great defensive plays by second baseman Garrett Beyer. Greg Moyes hit a two-run triple to put Monroe ahead 4-0. Len Bergen closed out the night with two scoreless innings. Monroe won 8-0 and is on the way to Cape May for the District Tournament. Seedings for that tournament will be decided tonight.