Lightning Show Heart Late, Overcome Big Deficit to Defeat Winter Park

Leesburg, FL – The cardiac kids are at it again. The Leesburg Lightning (21-7) used a fired up dugout and a six-run rally to overcome a four-run deficit and defeat the Winter Park Diamond Dawgs (11-16) by a score of 7-5 on Friday night.

Winter Park raced out to 3-0 lead, putting up one run in each of the first three innings. Leesburg starter Louis Davenport (Pensacola State), who started his first game of the season due to a shortage of pitchers for the Lightning, walked the lead-off batter Robert Scott (Lake Sumter CC) in the top of the first to start the game. Scott eventually came around to score on a passed ball to put the Dawgs up 1-0. An error by Jake Matulia (Flagler) in the second and a double Alex Jackson (Wichita State) in the third resulted in two more runs for the away team.

After the game, Lightning head coach Rich Billings said that the plan wasn’t to use a committee of pitchers, it just worked out that way.

“It was just kind of one of those things where you see what happens and we were going to go with whatever he was capable of giving us,” Billings explained. “We’re just like everyone else, we’re short on arms and we’re just trying to piece it together at this point.”

Leesburg got one run back in the bottom of the third inning after Luke Brown (Western Kentucky) displayed his great speed, beating out a ground ball for an infield single with one out. After Brown stole second and advanced to third on a wild pitch, Jake Matulia drove him in with an RBI groundout to the right side, closing the gap to 3-1.

Winter Park got two runs back off of reliever Aaron Simple (Flagler) in the top of the sixth, using a two-out rally and a wild pitch from Simple to set up Chandler Robertson (UCF) in prime position for a two-RBI single with runners on the corners.

Before Leesburg’s big rally, Coach Billings gathered his team outside of their dugout and delivered a speech that ignited the fire in their bats, imploring each and every player to play for one another and give the game all they had.

“It’s just about enthusiasm, I told them ‘no employee or player ever wants to show up and play for a coach or a boss that’s not happy to be there,’” said Billings. “It’s the same flip-flopped, coaches and bosses don’t want to manage people that aren’t excited. I talked to them about the excitement, the energy, it was just bad for the first seven innings.”

 Trailing 5-1 in the bottom of the eighth inning, the Lightning put together one of their signature rallies, putting up 6 runs to take a 7-5 lead. Jose Crisostomo (Miami Dade) drew a walk to start the inning, and singles from Jay Prather (North Florida) and Wes Weeks (North Florida) loaded the bases with no outs on the board. A walk to Sean Mootrey (Georgia Gwinnett) and hit by pitch with pinch-hitter Tanner Clark (North Florida) forced two runs across and kept the bases loaded. After Ja’Kobi Dasher (Flagler) grounded into an RBI fielder’s choice, Luke Brown doubled to shallow left field and Jake Matulia singled to drive in three more runs total. Matulia was thrown out trying to stretch the single into a double, ending the Leesburg rally, but the damage was already done.

The energy from the home dugout at Pat Thomas Stadium could be felt from all the way in the stands, and both Coach Billings and Lightning outfielder Luke Brown acknowledged how important that was to their comeback effort after the game.

“When we act like that in the dugout it’s a great feeling,” Brown explained. “I think it really helps everybody play better, have fun and just have better energy.”

“That’s what makes summer ball fun, they’re allowed to have some fun in the dugout, they’re allowed to maybe come out of character a little bit,” Billings said. “We’re a different team when our guys show up and they’re excited and energetic, summer’s long enough, we need the energy to be able to get through it.”

Pedro Reyes-Ruiz (Miami Dade) gave up a walk and allowed Alex Jackson to reach on a Matulia error, but kept the Dawgs off the scoreboard in the ninth inning, securing the 7-5 win for the Lightning.                                                                                                                      

The Lightning are back in action for a doubleheader against the Winter Garden Squeeze on Saturday, starting at 4 p.m. 

Matt Holzapfel (Elon University)