Lightning fall in series finale to Rats

The Leesburg Lightning (6-7) dropped the final game of the series with a 4-1 final score against the Sanford River Rats (11-5) Saturday night at Pat Thomas Stadium.

Sanford struck first in the top of the third inning Omar Villaman brought in one run and a putout on Elih Marrero scored another for a 2-0 lead.

The Rats added another in the fourth on a Dathan Prewitt putout for a 3-0 ballgame and Leesburg’s bats remained quiet all night with only three hits for the squad.

“I’m trying to encourage them individually as I’m in the dugout and try to give them certain things that I see from each at bat as the game goes,” Billings said. “Instead of talking to them collectively as a group I try to hit each of them individually tonight with something throughout the game. It’s little things but nonetheless there’s still adjustments that need to be made and we’ll get it.”

With bases loaded in the bottom of the sixth Sanford pitcher Ronny Orta plucked Brent Burgess in the back to bring in a run for the Lightning and a 3-1 score.

Bailey Sutton went six innings for Leesburg with six hits, three runs and three strikeouts before Brent Burgess replaced him on the mound.

Burgess had a solid two innings for the Bolts with two hits and two strikeouts. Another run would score for the Rats on a catcher’s error in the top of the eighth making it 4-1 in Sanford’s favor.

Daniel Pierce entered in the top of the ninth and would see only two batters before Ryan Allain was called out from the bullpen. A lineout to Kevin Lambert at shortstop and a quick toss to second put away two Rats and a quick putout by Jay Prather retired the final batter for Sanford.

Submarine pitcher CJ Carter took the mound for the Rats in the bottom of the inning and retired the Lightning in order with two putouts and a fly out to center field.

“We just got to start scoring some runs,” Billings said. “I don’t know what’s happened to our bats. I thought we swung at some better pitches tonight and had better at bats. We didn’t strikeout a ton but we just got to start getting some hits with runners in scoring position.”

The Bolts return to action for a makeup game against the Winter Garden Squeeze on Sunday, June 24, at Pat Thomas Stadium. Gates open at 3 p.m. and first pitch is set for 5 p.m.

Emily Shoffit - 06/24/17 10:19pm

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