Late Rally Falls Short as Leesburg Drops Second Straight to DeLand

DeLand, FL - Winter Garden and Winter Park can have their "Winter War" and Seminole County and Sanford can have their "Battle for Sanford Memorial", but the best matchup all season long has been the first place Leesburg Lightning (23-9) and the second place DeLand Suns (18-14). The Florida Collegiate Summer League's two top teams have put on the best shows so far this summer and it isn't close. The Suns took the eighth game of the summer-long series against the Lightning, which Leesburg leads 5-3 overall, by a score of 13-11 on a night where all three games in the Florida League saw at least 19 runs cross the plate.

It was another tough loss for Leesburg, and after the game was over, Lightning Head Coach Rich Billings drilled into his players that tough losses always bring adversity, but it's how you respond to that adversity that matters. "I told them that adversity is that feeling that you're feeling right now where it feels like not a lot is going our way and you can't win," Billings explained. "You can shy away from it or you can put your head down and plow through the middle of it. Whichever you decide to do makes you either a competitor or a participant, and we don't want participants, we want competitors.

The Suns put up runs in every inning but the third, although they never managed more than a three spot in any inning. Nonetheless, it was too much for the Lightning to overcome, despite a valiant effort and a five-run rally in the top of the ninth.

An RBI groundout by Matthew Mulkey (Winthrop) and the first triple allowed by the Leesburg pitching staff all season off the bat of Geordon Blanton (Marshall) put the Suns ahead 2-0 after just one inning of play.

After DeLand added a third run in the bottom of the second inning, Leesburg finally got on the board themselves in the top of the third. Two walks and a double by Luke Brown (Western Kentucky) loaded the bases with just one out for Wes Weeks (North Florida). Weeks hit an RBI single that kept the bases loaded, and the red-hot Tanner May (North Florida) hit a sac fly to right field to close the gap to 3-2.

After a quiet bottom of the third, the Suns added three runs through the next two innings, leading up to the biggest 12 outs of the game. After DeLand starter Jesus Valoy (Miami Dade) got out of back-to-back bases-loaded jams in the fourth and fifth innings, reliever Connor Udell (Princeton) got the Lightning to go down in order in the top of the sixth, one of only two half-innings all game that did not feature at least one baserunner.

Valoy picked up his sixth win of the season, putting him at an outstanding 6-0 with an ERA of 2.41. His six wins leads the league, putting him at the top of the running for the FCSL Cy Young award.

The teams traded three-run innings in the sixth and the seventh, starting with three for the Suns in the bottom half of the sixth. The Lightning countered, however, added three of their own on a two-run home run by Tanner May and an RBI single by Matthew Wiseman (San Jacinto). The home run for May marked the third straight game that he's registered a long ball, putting him one behind league-leader Jacob Teter of Winter Park with six on the season. Tanner also had five RBIs in the game, adding to his league-leading total, which now stands at 30. The next closest is his Leesburg and North Florida teammate Jay Prather (North Florida), who has 23.

Down 13-6 heading into the top of the ninth, all hope seemed lost for the second game in a row for the visiting Lightning. Anyone who has seen what Leesburg can do late in games would not be surprised at what happened next, though. The Bolts used four hits and two walks to spark a five-run rally and pull within two runs of the Suns with still one out remaining. With Jay Prather on second base and Tucker Rayburn (Florida A&M) representing the tying run in the batter's box, Suns reliever Andrew Smith (Lakeland) got Rayburn to strike out looking on a 50/50 pitch on the outside of the plate that left Tucker standing there in disbelief.

This game marked the third time in the series that both teams have put up double-digit run totals and the fifth time that final score was decided by two runs or less. After the game, Coach Billings acknowledged that his team always knows that they could be in for a shootout when the matchup with DeLand. "We just know that it's going to be a slugfest because they're a very good offensive team, and we know that we're going to have to match them," Billings said of the Suns, who have scored the second most runs in the Florida League all season, trailing only the Lightning in that category. "I think our hitters understand that and we just have to do a better job of getting three outs in an inning and driving guys in when we have opportunities to do that."

These two teams will do battle again on Friday night in DeLand at 7:00 p.m., their final regular-season meeting before the playoffs. That game will play a key role as the Lightning try and clinch the top seed and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, and only the Suns are close enough to catch them.

Matt Holzapfel (Elon University)

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