Lightning Go Winless at Suns

LEESBURG, Fla. -- The Leesburg Lightning returned to beautiful Melching Field in DeLand, Florida to face the Suns. The two clubs concluded a suspended game from June 8th and then participated in a regularly scheduled contest for a nightcap.

Game One

On June 8th, the Suns and Lightning played three innings before the game was suspended due to weather.

The game was resumed on Wednesday with a 1-1 score in the top of the fourth inning. The matchup was played as a seven inning affair.

However, after neither team was able to push a run across in regulation, the game went to extra innings tied at 1-1. For extra innings, the international tiebreaker rule was implemented. The rule consists of the batting team placing a runner at second base with no outs. The runner is determined by whichever player made the last out of the previous inning.

In the top of the eight, the Lightning placed Jarrett Backus (King College) at second base. After a popout and a groundout, Backus advanced to third on a wild pitch.

With Robbie Scott (North Florida) at the plate and two outs on the board, head coach Rich Billings put on the suicide-squeeze bunt play. Scott pushed the bunt out towards third base and the DeLand pitcher came off the mound, fielded the ball, and tossed it home. The Suns catcher caught the ball and applied the tag to Backus’s lower-half for the third out.

The Suns came to bat and delivered a one-out walk off single and escaped with a 2-1 win.

Game Two

After a 30 minute intermission, the Suns and Lightning battled it out in a regularly scheduled nine inning game.

Daniel Paret (Stetson) toed the rubber for the Suns, while the Lightning sent Peyton Winebarger (North Carolina A&T) to the bump.

The Suns got things started early, after an RBI double from Garrett Wallace (South Carolina Upstate) and an RBI groundout from Tim Dixon (Little Rock) put the Suns up 2-0 after two innings of play.

That was all the runs that were scored until the seventh inning, when Paret exited the game after six shutout innings in which he allowed two hits and no walks while striking out nine batters.

In the top of the seventh, Max Law (North Florida) welcomed the DeLand bullpen with a double down the left field line to put a runner in scoring position with nobody out for the Lightning. With two outs and Law at third following a groundout, Stephen Wilmer (East Carolina) guided a single through the right side of the infield to cut the DeLand lead in half. After seven, the Suns led 2-1.

The Suns added some much-needed insurance in the home half of the eighth, as Mark Townsend (Stetson) crushed an RBI double that made it 3-1 Suns. With runners on second and third, Alan Alonso (Mount Olive) added two more runs with a two-RBI single that made it 5-1 Suns after eight frames.

The Lightning bats were quieted in the ninth as DeLand ran away with the 5-1 victory.

Coach Billings was frustrated with his team’s performance in both games. “We can’t walk guys,” Billings said. “We can’t make errors. We aren’t hitting. Our pitching kept us in both games but we just aren’t hitting.”

Jaxon Peebles (Alabama)

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