Tamaqua 11-12 year old Little League coach Mike VanBuskirk described last week's opening round loss to Valley East as a "wake-up call."

It's certainly safe to say that his squad is now surely wide-awake.Tamaqua put on an absolute hit parade against Freeland and won yet another game which kept them alive in the double-elimination tournament.VanBuskirk's squad scored double-digit runs in both the first and second innings and defeated Freeland in a four-inning affair, 32-7.Tamaqua didn't sleep at all this game, as it scored the 13 first inning runs on 11 hits. Nate Wickersham, Carson Krell, and Luke VanBuskirk each launched home runs during the huge first inning."This team doesn't mind being the underdog," said the Tamaqua coach. "We got to the loser's bracket and now they're just having fun. That first game was a wake-up call. They've become more relaxed and focused as the tournament went on."Tamaqua essentially put the game away after the second inning when it piled on 10 more runs during the offensive showcase. Eleven different Tamaqua players recorded multiple hits in the contest."We're improving every practice and every game as a team," VanBuskirk explained. "The kids are jelling right now. When that starts to happen, good things happen. Nobody cares who comes up to bat and that puts less pressure on everyone else."Tamaqua hit an impressive total of seven home runs during the rout. Nate Wickersham later blasted a three-run shot after hitting a solo shot in the first inning. Joel Schellhammer, batting eighth in the lineup, single handedly outscored Freeland Sunday. The Tamaqua first basemen was five-for-five from the dish with three home runs (including a grand slam), as he contributed a grand total of 10 RBIs during the convincing victory."Joel is seeing the ball real well right now," said VanBuskirk. "He wasn't trying to do too much, and like the rest of the kids, he was seeing the ball to the bat and swinging away."A.J. Forte supplied the offense for Freeland, hitting a home run and knocking in four runs during the loss. Despite his nice offensive day, Tamaqua was surely in control from the first pitch of the game."Everyone is clicking at the same time," VanBuskirk said. "All of them are making better contact. I tell them all of the time to not try and do so much. We're used to seeing fastballs and today we saw some off-speed stuff so it was a little harder to be patient. They were relaxed and had a good batting practice before the game."VanBuskirk told his team after the game that they need to have a short term memory at this point of the tournament."I told them to forget about this game. When you do something bad you have to forget about it when you have a great game you need to start from scratch the next game. You see different pitchers and have tougher games as you move on. So next game, we're going right back to square one."Tamaqua (13) (10) 4 5 - 32 33 1Freeland 015 1 - 7 6 1VanBuskirk, Monk (3), Krell (3), and Wickersham; Forte, Pesotine (1), Valkusky (2), VanBlargen (3), Overton (4), and Valkusky, Haraschack. W - VanBuskirk. L - Forte; HR :Tamaqua - Schellhammer 3 (second, none on; second, two on; third, three on), Wickersham 2 (first, none on; second, two on), VanBuskirk (first, none on), Krell (first, none on); Freeland - Forte (third, two on)