Mainers Rally in the Ninth to Win Wild Game against Mystic
June 21, 2023 - New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL)
Sanford Mainers News Release
MYSTIC, Connecticut - Back to .500.
It was anything but pretty, but the Sanford Mainers rallied in the ninth inning on mistakes from Mystic to win their third straight game and even their season record at 6-6.
The first three innings went by relatively quiet for both offenses as two Georgetown Hoyas in Cody Bowker and Everett Catlett went toe-to-toe on the rubber.
Catlett broke first though as the Mainers found some success against the Schooners' left-handed pitcher, and then the bullpen, in the top of the fourth inning.
Jack Toomey (Holy Cross) doubled on a ball that bounced over the wall to get Sanford its first hit of the afternoon. With Toomey then in scoring position and an early season tendency to strand runners, Catlett got Devan Bade (Binghamton) to flyout for the second out of the inning.
Bade proved to be the final batter that Catlett faced as he was replaced by Shugy Klein (George Washington). Klein faced two hitters in the contest, Devin Russell (Maryland) and Jeremiah Jenkins (Maine), and walked both, throwing a total of three wild pitches in the process that allowed Toomey and Russell to touch home plate.
With the Mainers holding the first lead of the ballgame for the fourth time in five games, Bowker returned to the bump for the bottom of the fourth inning. After erasing a leadoff single by Mike Bello (Auburn) with a double play, the hard-throwing righty walked Landon Moran (Stetson) before he retired JT Navyac (Cal St Fullerton) on a ground ball to end his afternoon.
Bowker, a two-way player from Georgetown who started in right field a night prior, finished his second start for Sanford with a lead intact after four shutout innings of seven-strikeout baseball.
In the fifth, Fenix DiGiacomo (Presbyterian), who replaced Klein to end the fourth, loaded the bases in part to two free passes and a single, and gave Bade a chance to strike with two outs.
Bade worked a five-pitch walk against DiGiacomo to force in his Binghamton teammate Nick Roselli from third base.
Declan Lavelle (Fordham) worked a scoreless bottom of the fifth in his first inning of relief out of the Mainers' bullpen, but in the sixth he ran into some trouble.
Anthony Sherwin (Bucknell) was hit by a pitch and Julian Stevens (Missouri) recorded the third Mystic hit to put two runners on with no outs.
Lavelle did not back down from the challenge as he struck out Bello, but when Addison Kopack (Rhode Island) came to the plate the result was different. Kopack singled to bring in Sherwin, move Stevens to second and end the Mainers shutout streak at 12.1 innings.
Stevens did all the work for the next run as he slid into third safely on a stolen base as the ball sailed into the outfield on the throw from the catcher Russell. Before getting the chance to dust himself off, Stevens got up and hustled across home plate to cut the deficit to 3-2.
The Sanford bats could not provide any insurance for Jacob Jette (UMass Lowell), who took over for Lavelle in the eighth, and that proved costly.
Kopack drove in Sherwin, who was on third base after a leadoff single and another overthrow from Russell on a stolen base attempt, on a sacrifice fly. Between the Sherwin walk and Kopack sacrifice fly, Bello reached base via a walk of his own and he came around to score two-batters if Kopack on an RBI single by Navyac.
But that's when things got wild again, literally.
Cal Hewett (Vanderbilt) singled to start off the visitors' portion of the ninth and Eddie Eisert (Virginia Tech) followed him one at-bat later with a base on balls.
Jude Abbadessa (UConn) relieved Dominic Baratta (Belmont) and promptly retired the first two hitters he saw, but it came at a cost as a wild pitch allowed Hewett and Eisert to each move up a base.
With two outs and runners in scoring position, Bade came to the plate as the last chance for the Mainers. Abbadessa made the pitch he had to as Bade rolled over a ball to third base, but Kopack bobbled the ball allowing a run to come in and tie the game.
Following that error, Abbadessa could not record the final out that he was so close to getting from Bade. Eisert and Bade both scored on wild pitches with Russell at the plate and Russell followed suit, circling the bases on wild pitches to cap off a four-run top of the ninth inning.
Mystic made things interesting in the ninth, but Michael Simes (UMass Lowell) recorded the final three outs while allowing just one run to cap off the 7-5 victory for Sanford.
The Mainers finish a four-game, three-day stretch in Connecticut tomorrow night in Bristol.
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New England Collegiate Baseball League Stories from June 21, 2023
- Vermont Wins Game One; Ties in Second Half of Doubleheader with Ocean State - Vermont Mountaineers
- Mainers Rally in the Ninth to Win Wild Game against Mystic - Sanford Mainers
- How Sweep Is It? Mainers Take Both Games of Doubleheader Against Danbury - Sanford Mainers
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