Lightning Provide Fireworks With Bats, Walk-Off Squeeze 4-3

Leesburg, FL – They say slow and steady wins the race, and that rang true on Saturday night as the Leesburg Lightning (4-0) quite literally walked it off 4-3 against the Winter Garden Squeeze (1-2) to remain undefeated. With the bases loaded, nobody out and the score tied at three in the bottom of the seventh, Gabriel Rincones (St. Petersburg) worked a five-pitch walk against Matthew Taubensee (Lake Sumter State) to bring home the winning run, for the Lightning’s second walk-off of the young season. 

“We [were] just making sure that he knew he needed to get good pitches,” Leesburg manager Rich Billings said of Rincones, “…[Taubensee] throws for me at Lake Sumter so I kind of knew what he had.” The Lightning loaded the bags for their right fielder without the help of a single hit as Collin Teegarden (Valdosta State) was hit by a pitch and Tommy Seidl and Alejandro Figueredo (Seminole State) drew walks on nine straight pitches off the plate.

Figueredo came up big in the fifth inning, tying up the contest 3-3 with a sharp RBI base hit to right. “Our boys did a great job,” Figueredo said, “we were losing three nothing, we just stayed grinding, we tied the game and we walked it off.” Prior to Leesburg’s big three-run fifth, their bats were kept quiet as the Squeeze jumped out to an early three to nothing lead.

As has been the case in the majority of the Lightning’s games in 2020, they found themselves down early. Winter Garden second baseman Lucas Dunn (Louisville) led the game off by launching a 2-1 pitch beyond Pat Thomas Stadium’s left field fence to give his team the early advantage. The Squeeze would then capitalize on a couple of infield errors to push across two more runs, but would fail to touch home plate for the rest of the ball game.

Aside from the offensive heroics, the other key storyline of the contest was the Lightning bullpen. After starter Zach Chappell (North Florida) surrendered three runs (one earned), four of his teammates bridged together five and a third innings of shutout ball to keep their team in the game. The group was highlighted by an outstanding effort by Heath Olive (Falkner) who needed just 12 pitched to collect a pair of strikeouts and retire the Squeeze in order in the top of the fifth. Matthew Coles (Carson Newman) earned his first victory of the season on the strength of two scoreless innings of relief.

Winter Garden had their fair share of dominant performances on the mound as well as Ethan Brown (Seminole State) and Parker Messick (Florida State) opened the game with a combined three and a third frames of shutout ball, including a pair of strikeouts.

Both teams have Sunday off but will return to action on Monday as the Squeeze visit the Snappers at Sanford Memorial at 7pm and the Lightning host the River Rats in a battle of undefeated teams also at 7pm.

-Zack Smolen

Zack Smolen - 07/04/20 10:38pm

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