Lightning Clinch Number One Seed in Doubleheader Split with Scorpions

Sanford, FL - The road to the Florida League championship will officially go through Pat Thomas Stadium. The Leesburg Lightning (25-11) split a doubleheader with the Seminole County Scorpions (15-22) on Monday night, but a DeLand Suns loss gave the Lightning just enough of a lead in the standings to officially clinch the top seed in this year's playoffs.

Game 1

Matthew Coles (Florida Tech) is not a starter. Don't tell him that, though. The lefty from Florida Tech started game one and threw six innings of four-hit baseball, allowing only one run in his first start of the summer. The first of two seven-inning games saw the visiting Lightning race out to an early 4-0 lead and never look back.

"That was huge. We're obviously down some guys, I think that's league-wide, everyone is kind of running out of arms and running out of players, but Matt stepped up big time for us today in game one," Lightning Head Coach Rich Billings said of his starter, who was making his 15th appearance of the season but his first start. "He threw a gem and that was huge. He definitely saved us some arms and we're sitting in a good spot going into tomorrow."

Frank Niemann (Tulane) picked up his second RBI of his short stint with the Lightning so far in the first inning after Jay Prather (North Florida) hit a two-out single and Wes Weeks (North Florida) followed that up with a walk to put two runners on and two out. With a 3-2 count, Niemann hit a short single that drove in Prather to put Leesburg up 1-0.

Errors by Scorpions second baseman Fausto Lopez (Pensacola State) and left fielder Garrett Stillwell (FGCU) allowed three more runs to score in the second inning in the forms of Tucker Rayburn (Florida A&M), Luke Brown (Western Kentucky) and Matthew Wiseman (San Jacinto). 

Seminole County got one run on the board in the bottom of the second thanks to a wild pitch by Coles, but that was all they could muster as they put up just four hits all game. Leesburg added insurance runs in the fifth and seventh innings thanks to a pair of two-RBI doubles by Matthew Wiseman, his third, fourth, fifth and sixth RBIs of the season all coming in what was undoubtedly his best game with Leesburg yet.

"That was really nice. He added a couple of insurance runs which was really big and helped us to relax a little bit going into those late innings," Coach Billings said of Wiseman, who had seven strikeouts to only two hits prior to today. "It was fun to see him what he's capable of doing."

New pitcher Samuel Brunnig, making his first appearance since joining the team last Thursday, pitched a flawless seventh inning in a non-save situation to secure the 8-1 win for Leesburg.

Game 2

The Lightning raced out to an early lead once again in game two, pouring in three runs in the top of the first inning. Luke Brown and Jose Crisostomo (Miami Dade) started off the innings with back-to-back singles, and Jay Prather added another single to score Brown with still no outs in the inning. The very next batter, Wes Weeks, doubled on the first pitch he saw, driving home Crisostomo from third. Tucker Rayburn's sacrifice fly drove in Jay Prather to make it 3-0 Leesburg before Sean Mootrey (Georgia Gwinnett) struck out swinging to end the early run.

Seminole County showed heart, however, inching back inning by inning in the game. The Scorpions scored once in the second, twice in the third and twice in the fifth, but still trailed 7-5 after five innings due to a big fourth inning from Leesburg. Mootrey got his only hit of the day to start off the fourth inning for Leesburg and Garrett Bogart (Savannah State) drew a walk to put two runners on with no outs. One out later, Luke Brown singled to load the bases with Jose Crisostomo coming to the plate. Crisostomo sent a fly ball to deep center field, but it ended up being just a sacrifice fly that scored Mootrey. North Florida teammates Jay Prather and Wes Weeks singled consecutively, adding three more runs to the Lightning total.

Trailing 8-6 entering the seventh and final inning, Anthony George (UCF) and Garrett Stillwell both singled to put Seminole County in prime position for a late comeback attempt. After a Fausto Lopez groundout moved both runners up 90 feet, Lightning reliever Pedro Reyes-Ruiz (Miami Dade) hit Alex Ray (Tallahassee CC) with a pitch to load the bases with just one out. Shortstop Trace Thornal donned the cape and "here" title for the Scorpions, knocking a walk-off single to right field that scored George and Stillwell to seal the win for the home side.

After the game, Coach Billings said that his team's game two loss came down to a lack of solid defense. "We just didn't play very good defense. We were behind a lot of hitters on the pitching side, we were in a lot of 2-0 count and you have to work ahead and pound the zone," Billings said of his team, who committed three errors in game two compared to just one in game one. "You have to make plays when you get the opportunity to do that and we didn't do a very good job at that tonight. They were just a little bit better than us on defense."

Despite the loss, Leesburg clinched the top spot in the Florida Collegiate Summer League playoffs and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs thanks to a tiebreaker. Second place DeLand currently sits five games back of the Lightning at 20-16 with five games remaining for both teams. Even if the Lightning lose all five games and the Suns win all five of theirs, the two teams would end the regular season tied at 25-16. Leesburg would then claim the top seed because they won the season series over the Suns, 5-4.

The Lightning will finish out their final regular-season series with Seminole County with an away game at Sanford Memorial Stadium on Tuesday and a home game against the Scorpions on Wednesday. Both games are scheduled to start at 7:00 p.m.

Matt Holzapfel (Elon University)

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