Ball, Leckszas Drive Mainers Back to .500
July 17, 2024 - New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL)
Sanford Mainers News Release
SANFORD, Maine - Seeking wins in consecutive games for the first time since June 29 and July 1, the Sanford Mainers rallied behind strong pitching to take down the Upper Valley Nighthawks on Wednesday in a battle with playoff implications at Goodall Park.
All-Star pitcher Connor Ball (Alabama) got the ball for Sanford and answered the call. The left-handed pitcher set down six of the first seven batters he saw over the first two innings. The one who reached, Gehrig Frei (Mississippi State), was stranded on third base to end the top of the second inning.
The Mainers did not take long to capitalize on Upper Valley's missed scoring chance as Blake Schaaf (Georgetown) singled to open the home portion of the second. Schaaf, who came into the day 7-of-8 on stolen base attempts, was leading off first base when Dalton Olsovsky (High Point) had an errant pickoff attempt.
Schaaf advanced to third base on the error by Upper Valley's starting pitcher, and after Ray Velazquez (Vanderbilt) walked to put runners on the corners, Mateo Hernandez (Austin Peay) blooped a ball into right field.
That ball fell in front of Cole Fellows (Columbia) allowing Schaaf to score the first run of the ballgame.
"It seems like all the quality at-bats have been done through our one through four slots," manager Nic Lops said of his offense after the game. "It was really nice to see the five through nine guys really chalk up a lot of quality at-bats tonight."
The bottom half of the Mainers lineup wasn't quite done in the inning with Ryan Koblen (UMass) walking and Jared Davis (Virginia Tech) recording a knock. However, despite the first five hitters of the second inning reaching base for Sanford, they only brought around Schaaf's run as Gunnar Johnson (Boston College) caught Velazquez and Hernandez stealing third base.
That score stood until the seventh inning as both Ball and Olsovsky along with the two relievers in Kai Leckszas (Georgetown) and Jacob Price (Kentucky) shut down both lineups until the seventh inning.
In the bottom of the seventh, Velazquez, who entered the day in a 2-for-25 skid at the plate, unleashed a 370-foot home run that cleared the left field wall. That home run was Velazquez's team-leading fourth of the season, and it doubled Sanford's lead to two runs.
Leckszas, who entered after Ball threw four no-hit innings, worked a scoreless eighth following a leadoff single to Johnson. The Mainers' right-handed pitcher forced Harry Genth (Haverford) to bounce into a double play before getting Chris Baillargeon (Holy Cross) to fly out to center to complete his fourth inning of work.
"I still don't think that's the best we've seen out of Kai," Lops said of Leckszas' shutout relief appearance. "I think he's going to really build off that outing and build confidence internally from that one. I'm hoping his next one is even better."
Leckszas walked off the mound after the top of the eighth inning with Sanford in front 2-0, but by the time Beau Brailey (Alabama) entered for the ninth Sanford had a five-run advantage.
With one out in the bottom of the eighth, Caleb Shpur (UConn) singled to center field before Devan Bade (Binghamton) was helped by the night sky on a double that Fellows never saw off the bat. With those two runners in scoring position, C.J. Willis (Quinnipiac), who was 0-for-3 on the night, singled right up the middle to give the Mainers a 4-0 lead.
"When you have that sort of leadership from the bats at the end of your lineup, it instills more confidence in the top that they can come through and drive them in if they set the table them," Lops said of his offense that saw the bottom of the order provide early before Willis' hit in the eighth.
Willis himself came around to score when Hernandez doubled down the right field line to make it a three-run inning and five-run game for Sanford.
Upper Valley got one of those runs back on a solo home run by D.J. Pacheco (Richmond) in the top of the ninth, but Brailey put the finishing touches on the victory for Sanford.
The victory moved Sanford's record back to .500 on the season and put them a game above Upper Valley in the wild card hunt.
"I think the biggest thing that has played into that is how much these last two games everybody's had each other's backs," Lops said of the two-game streak propelled by his pitching staff allowing just one run in 14 innings. "Everyone is in the dugout now, everyone is hooting and hollering, and everyone is engaged on every single pitch."
Sanford looks to keep it going on Thursday as they travel to North Adams, Massachusetts to face the North Adams SteepleCats. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
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