COOPERSTOWN – Sherburne slipped into the Otsenango Pony League playoffs by virtue of a tiebreaker. Three victories later – two over division champions – Sherburne is now the league champion.

Using a stirring seventh-inning rally, Sherburne scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh to defeat previously-unbeaten Oneonta U-14, 7-6 at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown Tuesday night.

The league championship for Sherburne marks the 10-year anniversary of the team’s last Otsenango Pony League title. “No, we don’t want to wait that long again,” said Sherburne coach Craig Cole, who returns most of his team next year. “Everybody plays and everybody contributes on this team. We knew we had a chance to win this game from the get-go.”

Oneonta (10-1) jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first inning, and clung to a three-run lead over Sherburne, who nibbled away at the deficit with single runs in the third, fifth, and sixth innings. Oneonta hurler, Mike Calkin, picked off two baserunners to limit the damage in the third, and a controversial throw-and-tag-out of Austin Jasper at the plate cut Sherburne’s fifth-inning uprising short.

Calkin, who was overpowering at times through the first four innings, began to tire and lose his control, and was lifted after six frames.