Lightning Lose Season Opener to Suns in Shootout, 17-11

Leesburg, FL - 28 runs, 21 hits, 22 walks and 3 hours and 50 minutes of game time was all it took to decide the winner of game one of the 2018 Florida Collegiate Summer League season for the Leesburg Lightning. The Lightning (0-1) and the DeLand Suns (1-0) combined to use 11 different pitchers, 8 of which belonged to Leesburg, a move that head coach Rich Billings said was calculated and planned before the game even began. "It is predetermined, they know how many innings they're responsible for getting, and that's probably the way it's going to be, at least the first couple of games," Billings said. "It'll be the same tomorrow."

The first two innings were relatively uneventful, with one player reaching base for each team in the top and bottom of the first inning, and both teams going down 1-2-3 in the second inning. The third inning would be different, however, and would set the tone for the rest of the night. Nick DeTringo opened up the scoring for DeLand when his one-out double scored Trent Taylor from second base. The Lightning would once again go down in order, but at least two runs were scored in every inning for the rest of the night.

The Lightning took their only lead of the game in the bottom of the fourth, putting up three runs thanks to hits by Wes Weeks and Tanner May, and a brilliant double steal by Jay Prather and May.

Eight DeLand runs in the top of the fifth proved to be a fatal blow for the Lightning, though, as they never came closer than two runs after the Suns' offensive explosion. Leesburg pitching coach Mike Matulia made two mound visits in the inning, calling for Ronny Hinton to relieve Jaylin Turner after Turner gave up a no-out grand slam to DeTringo, who finished the night 4-5 with an astounding eight RBIs.

The Lightning were determined to prove to their fans at the packed Pat Thomas Stadium that they had fight in them, putting up six runs of their own in the next two innings. Javeon Cody knocked in one run in the sixth with an RBI double, and Jay Prather's RBI groundout brought the Lightning to within 4, trailing just 9-5. After the Suns added two runs of their own in the top of the seventh, Leesburg responded with four runs in the bottom half of the inning, powered by RBI singles from Western Kentucky's Luke Brown and North Florida's Tanner May and Jay Prather. "I told them it's not time to panic, we have to score, we don't have to get them all back right now but we have to score in those innings to keep us in it and they did," Coach Billings said of his team's spirited comeback attempt. "They answered, they answered really well and I think just keeping them calm and not panicking myself helped us through that."

The proverbial nail in the coffin seemed to come in the top half of the eighth inning when DeLand extended their lead back to six (15-9) thanks to a bevy of wild pitches thrown by Lightning pitcher William Walter from Florida A&M University. Three of the Suns' four runs in the eighth came off of wild pitches, with the fourth coming off of an RBI infield single from DeTringo.

Leesburg added one run in the eighth and one in the ninth before eventually losing 17-11. The game took just under four hours, but Lightning fans were just happy to have gotten the game in after rain and thunder pushed the first pitch time back from 7:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Connor Udell picked up the win for DeLand, as Jaylin Turner took the loss for Leesburg. "We got a lot of things to work on, but obviously we got to have strikes from the pitchers," Billings replied when asked about what his team needs to do differently if they want to win the second game of this season-opening series. "A lot of these guys haven't thrown much this year, some of them it's been a while since they've been on the mound so we got to have strikes from the pitchers. We also have to eliminate the little mistakes, the walks, the wild pitches, the passed balls and errors in the field. If we can at least eliminate half of those things, we're going to be in good shape."

These two teams will meet again on Saturday, June 2nd at 7:00 p.m. at Pat Thomas Stadium, a game that was originally scheduled to be played in DeLand but was moved due to Stetson University hosting NCAA baseball regional playoff games this weekend.

Matt Holzapfel (Elon University)

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