Read this at the FCSL website.
SANFORD, Fla. (June 10, 2011) – The Sanford River Rats handed the Leesburg Lightning their first loss of the season in an 8-1 romp at Historic Sanford Memorial Stadium Friday night.
“The game starts and ends with pitching,” River Rats Head Coach Stephen Piercefield said. “To limit a team like that to five hits is a great job. We were able to limit their offense and came out the better team that way.”
Ray Hanson (Central Florida) picked up the win in his first start for Sanford (3-4), allowing just one run on three hits in six innings of work.
“I struck out two guys and the defense did the rest,” Hanson said. “It was just one of those nights that where no matter where I put it it’d be a ground ball or they’d miss it.”
Of the 18 outs recorded while Hanson was on the mound, only one made it to the outfield, while 12 were groundouts to the infielders. Hanson also had four three-up three-down innings.
“He’s got a great arm and gets ahead of hitters,” Piercefield said. “He gives us a chance to win every time he goes out, just like all our pitchers do. He’s got a chance to be in the front of the rotation.”
The only run Hanson gave up was in the fourth when Jacob Tillotson (Florida) came home on a fielder’s choice to make it 1-0.
“He may have been a little upset about that, but when you get in a situation like that, you are going to score, so for him to limit them to one run there was huge,” said Piercefield. “The team fed off of that and we were able to roll off some quality at-bats.”
And roll they did. Sanford put up three in the home half of the fourth after Ian MacGeorge (Embry-Riddle) doubled and Tyler Doughty (Florida Tech) walked. TJ Gavlik (North Florida) hit an RBI single to score MacGeorge. Doughty was able to score after an Alex Mendez (South Florida) grounder, and James Ramsey (South Florida) hit an RBI single to score Gavlik to put the Rats up 3-1.
Sanford blanked Leesburg (6-1) in the fifth and scored two more as Doughty and Gavlik notched two more RBIs, scoring Ryan Woodrey (Nova Southeastern) and Doughty respectively.
Ramsey and Dan Haverstick (Rhode Island) both singled to start the bottom half of the sixth, and two wild pitches allowed Ramsey to score and Haverstick to reach third. Woodrey laid down a sacrifice bunt to score Haverstick and MacGeorge followed with an RBI single to plate Johnny Mazur (Florida Tech).
“We don’t take records into account,” Piercefield said of the previously undefeated Lightning. “We see nine guys trying to beat us and we go from there, whether they’re wearing a Lightning jersey or a New York Yankees jersey, we’re going to go out and execute the game of baseball.”
The Lightning will again play the River Rats in Sanford Saturday, June 11 at 7 p.m.
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