Sunday, June 19, 2011

River Rats Fall Hard to Diamond Dawgs

Read this article at the FCSL website.

SANFORD, Fla. (June 18, 2011) – The Sanford River Rats fought hard, but still fell 10-6 to the Winter Park Diamond Dawgs at Historic Sanford Memorial Stadium Saturday night.

“Tonight was a tough night, obviously,” River Rats Head Coach Stephen Piercefield said. “Winter Park came out and started off hot and it kind of got to us. We were able to change the approach and get a little more aggressive and move guys into scoring position, and we did a great job executing in those situations.”

Sanford allowed four runs through the first three innings, while scoring none of their own, but battled back through the next three frames to tie the game at 5-5 by the bottom of the sixth.

Ted Blackman (St. Petersburg College) scored the first run of the game for Winter Park (7-2-1) in the first. Dustin Demuth (Indiana University) hit a solo home run to left field in the second. Omar Cotto (Southern Cal) and Blackman both scored in the third to make it 4-0.

The Rats began their rally with Ian MacGeorge (Embry-Riddle) and TJ Gavlik (North Florida) scoring runs to make it 4-2 in the bottom of the fourth. Austin Liput (USC Upstate), who has been an RBI machine for the River Rats so far this year, had an RBI single to score James Ramsey (South Florida) in the fifth to bring the Rats within one.

Another Demuth run in the top of the sixth made it 5-3 going into the bottom of the frame, but Gavlik crossed home again in front of Tyler Doughty (Florida Tech) on a two-run RBI single from Johnny Mazur (Florida Tech) to knot it up at 5-5.

Justin Pickens (Stetson), pitching in relief for starter Ray Hanson (UCF), allowed a single to start the seventh, but the Rats’ defense turned a double play with the next batter. Pickens struck out Alex Cruz (Georgia Tech) to end the seventh.

Unfortunately, the Diamond Dawgs turned their own double play in the seventh and carried that momentum into the top of the eighth to score five runs and put the game out of reach for Sanford.

Demuth scored his third run of the night, and Michael Reed (Auburn University) scored one of his own on a two-RBI double from Blackman. Austin Chubb (Florida Southern) added another run with an RBI double to score Blackman. Finally, B.J. Zimmerman (State College of Florida) scored Chubb, but in trying to stretch for the double, was cut down on a quick throw from catcher Kyle Foti (Flagler) to Liput to end the inning.

Sanford had the bases loaded in the ninth, but was unable to capitalize, as they only scored one run to end the scoring at 10-6.

“Hopefully tomorrow we’ll put on a great show for the fans in Sanford and hopefully everyone has a great Father’s Day,” Piercefield said.

Sanford (3-6-1) will host the DeLand Suns (6-5) on Sunday, June 19. First pitch is slated for 5 p.m.; Bennie Sanchez (SCAD) will get the start.

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