Lightning Pitchers Come Up Big In Slump-Breaking Win

Winter Garden, FL - Hunter Caudelle (Georgia Gwinnett), William Walter (Florida A&M), Louis Davenport (Pensacola State) and Pedro Reyes-Ruiz (Miami Dade) had the stuff tonight. The quartet combined to throw nine shutout innings while only allowing two hits and striking out eight batters as the Leesburg Lightning (24-10) defeated the Winter Garden Squeeze (14-19-1) by a score of 3-0.

"It was awesome to see him come out and just do the job that we expect him to do," Lightning Coach Rich Billings said of Caudelle, who made by far his most complete start of the season tonight. "He did a fantastic job of keeping good tempo, he was in the zone, he got himself in a little bit of trouble but he was able to get himself out. Fantastic job by Hunter tonight."

The most offense all night came in the top of the first inning when the visiting Lightning put up two runs on four hits, chasing Squeeze starting pitcher Ryan Welsh (Undecided) after just three outs. Luke Brown (Western Kentucky) did what he seemingly always does, leading off the game with an infield single. Wes Weeks (North Florida) added an RBI single a few batters later, and his Osprey teammate Jay Prather (North Florida) moved him into scoring position two at-bats later. Walker McCleney (Alabama), arguably Leesburg's hottest hitter with Tanner May still in and out of the lineup, drove in Weeks with an RBI single, part of a 3-4 night for McCleney.

While Hunter Caudelle dealt through 5 1/3 innings, Winter Garden reliever Tyler Fagler (Dartmouth) kept the Lightning bats quiet on the other side, striking out six while giving up five hits through eight innings.

Leesburg added an insurance run in the top of the ninth inning on a Tanner Clark (North Florida) single that drove in McCleney to extend their lead to 3-0.

Pedro Reyes-Ruiz threw a flawless ninth inning to earn the save, his sixth of the summer.

Coach Billings, who challenged his team to fight through adversity just two days earlier, was happy with his team's effort despite their lack of offense. "When you're struggling, a win is what you're looking for. I don't think we can be picky at this point, a win is a win and we got that tonight," Billings said. "We got some great pitching, it was probably one of the more frustrating shutouts that I've been a part of on the offensive side but you can't be picky when you need to win ballgames."

The Lightning will look to start a new win streak on Sunday night at home against the Seminole County Scorpions, first pitch is set for 5:00 p.m.

Matt Holzapfel (Elon University)

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