Lightning Thrash River Rats After Weather Delay

Sanford, FL - The first inning was uneventful. The same can't be said for the second through the seventh innings. The Leesburg Lightning (9-1) outlasted a lightning delay and the host Sanford River Rats (5-7) to claim their ninth victory in a row, only one win shy of the all-time program record for the longest winning streak of 10 games set by the 2012 Lightning. The game ended after seven innings with the Lightning ahead 14-3 due to league mercy rules.

Sanford got on the board first in the bottom of the second inning after Miles Simington (Heartland CC) reached on a leadoff single and eventually took third base and home thanks to an error by Lightning shortstop Harrison Schnurbusch (Central Missouri) and a wild pitch by starting pitcher Robert Kwiatkowski (Spartanburg Methodist).

As they seemingly always do, Leesburg had a quick answer for the River Rats. In the top of the third inning, Schnurbusch made up for his gaffe in the field by reaching first on a bunt single, stealing second and third base, and then scoring on a passed ball on a pitch from Sanford starting pitcher Vladamir Nunez (Stetson).

The bottom of the third proved to be the start of the night's drama, as the game was halted due to lightning (the bad kind) with one out in the inning. 44 minutes and a lot of unhappy fans later, play resumed. Interestingly enough, Kwiatkowski returned to the mound for the Lightning and appeared unphased by the long delay, getting Bubba Sangster (St Johns River State) to fly out and Miles Simington to strike out quickly to end the inning.

Leesburg head coach Rich Billings lauded Kwiatkowski's efforts after the game and stressed how key it was that he was able to stay in the game and not show any signs of cooling off from the delay. "It was really big because we were a little limited on arms tonight, probably by Friday night everybody is limited on arms," Billings explained. "That was huge for us to be able to send him back out there and for him to give us a few more innings. I actually thought he got stronger after the weather delay so that was really encouraging to see."

The Lightning blew the game open in the top of the fourth with nine runs on three hits, six walks, three hit-by-pitches and a handful of errors by the Sanford defense. The River Rats used two different pitchers in the inning, Matt Logullo (Florida International) and Bo Plagge (Undecided), after pulling the starter Nunez following the delay. The two pitchers combined to give up the nine runs, all of them earned. It wasn't so much the Lightning offense as it usually has been during their big-run innings in the past as it was sloppy play in the field by Sanford, as well as a total lack of control from their pitchers. The home fans groaned while ball after ball ended up in the dirt, at the backstop, or hitting a Leesburg batter as the River Rats dug themselves into an insurmountable hole. The inning lasted almost as long as the entire weather delay, and the Lightning batted around almost two full times before Plagge finally got Harrison Schnurbusch to fly out to right field to end the onslaught.

Leesburg added two more in the top of the fifth after Jake Matulia (Flagler) and Wes Weeks (North Florida) both scored unearned runs. Matulia reached on an error and came home on a Tucker Rayburn (Florida A&M) RBI single, and Weeks scored on yet another wild pitch, this time from new pitcher Jonnie Benniefield III (Undecided).

Sanford, down at this point 12-1, added runs in the bottom of the fifth and the sixth, but it wasn't enough to force the game to go the distance, as the seventh inning ended with the Lightning winning 14-3.

Both teams will surely be hoping for clearer skies tomorrow night when they face each other again at 7 p.m. at Sanford Memorial Stadium for the third and final game of their first series of the summer.

Matt Holzapfel (Elon University)

Return to News