Shark Bite Sinks Mainers Under .500
July 7, 2024 - New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL)
Sanford Mainers News Release
Sanford Mainers' Ray Velazquez on game day
(, Credit: Madison Giltner Photo)
SANFORD, Maine - For the second straight night, an offensive explosion from the opposition was met with missed opportunities by the Sanford Mainers as the Martha's Vineyard Sharks defeated the Mainers 8-2 at Goodall Park on Sunday afternoon.
Despite the final score being tipped in favor of the visiting squad, the Mainers struck first with a two-out rally in the first inning. Devan Bade (Binghamton) extended the inning, and his hitting streak, with a double hit at 95 miles per hour to left-center field.
Bade came around to score as the next batter, Colin Barczi (Vanderbilt) struck for the first of his two singles, both of which were hit straight up the middle, in the contest. Barczi's single also left the bat at 95 miles per hour as it gave Sanford a 1-0 lead.
It did not take long for the Sharks to bite back as Mason Zambo (Louisiana) led off the next half-inning against Cole Schiff (UNC Asheville) with a single. Zambo came around two pitches later as William Lybrook (Harvard) unleashed a double into the same spot that Bade did to tie the game at one apiece.
"Tough for Schiff because he had such a great last outing against Bristol in which he really kept those guys off balance hitting his spot," manager Nic Lops said of the outing from his starter. "He didn't have the command and control we've seen early on this summer from him. They capitalized on the mistakes he made, hit the ball very hard and you've just got to tip your cap to them."
Without an out in the top of the second inning, Schiff yielded the fourth-straight hit, and second double of the inning, to Joey Brenczewski (Indiana), which brought home Lybrook for a 2-1 lead. That lead ballooned to one more as Griffin Mills (Northwestern) hit a sacrifice fly that allowed Brenczewski to score.
Two Mainers reached base in both the bottom of the second and the bottom of the third as one more joined the party in the bottom of the fourth. However, Sanford, which led the league with 219 runners left on base this season, stranded four of the five runners on base with a double play erasing the fifth.
"Every single night, it's 9, 10 or 11 guys left on base," Lops said of the season-long issue. "You don't deserve to win a baseball game when you're doing that. Right now, it's plain and simple, teams are out-competing us, out-executing us and out-coaching us."
Those runners left on base allowed Martha's Vineyard to add to their lead in the fifth inning against Kai Leckszas (Georgetown). Three consecutive singles by Brayden Martin (Maryland), Andrew Yu (Duke) and Zambo put across the Sharks' fourth run of the ballgame.
After a double play turned by Matt Miceli (Stony Brook) on a line drive to shortstop and a double by Reese Robinett (Arkansas), an error by Miceli plated Zambo for a 5-1 lead for the Sharks.
Jared Davis (Virginia Tech) started off the bottom half of the fifth inning against Jackson Cole (Clemson) with a single. A fielder's choice, another Barczi single and a walk by Caleb Shpur (UConn) loaded the bases for Ray Velazquez (Vanderbilt).
Velazquez popped out in foul territory to the first baseman in Zambo to end the threat and end Cole's afternoon after five innings of one-run baseball.
"When things are going well, it can snowball in the right direction. When things are going wrong it will snowball in the negative direction," Lops, who was ejected during Davis' at-bat that led off the inning, said about offensive production. "What we have going on here is a lot of snowballing and not a lot of fight or fire."
Joshua Kopetski (Rhode Island) worked a scoreless frame in the top of the sixth, but in the seventh the Sharks, who had 12 hits that left the bat at 90 miles per hour or greater, got back going.
Yu started the inning with a home run that cleared the right-field wall at Goodall Park to make it 6-1. Zambo followed Yu with his fourth hit of the contest and came around later in the inning on a wild pitch that made it a 6-run advantage for Martha's Vineyard.
The Mainers and Sharks traded runs in the eighth inning with a Chris Hacopian (Maryland) RBI single and a Velazquez solo home run, but Martha's Vineyard held Sanford away to finish the 8-2 victory.
"I think that we're a lot better than we're playing," Lops said of his team. "The talent on this roster is there. It just comes down to the compete level and execution level, and both of those things have been slacking as of late. We need to do something to get back on track."
Sanford has Monday off before heading on the road to play the Keene SwampBats on Tuesday afternoon. That game will stream exclusively on ESPN+. The game can also be heard on 1220AM/104.3 Seacoast Oldies and seacoastoldies.com.
"We need to show up with a lot of energy," Lops said of Tuesday's game. "We need to show up to that ballpark ready to execute from the first pitch to the last no matter how many innings or how long it takes."
Images from this story
 Sanford Mainers' Ray Velazquez on game day (Madison Giltner Photo) |
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