The Diamond Spikes battled Long Island Baseball Wednesday evening in a Boys of Summer Scout Division league matchup. Both teams struggled to put runs on the board in a game that ended in a 1-1 tie.
The tale of the tape was the incredible pitching displayed by both sides. For the Diamond Spikes, southpaw Matt Leahy took the hill. Leahy pitched 5.2 innings, but was pulled with two outs in the top of the sixth after LIB’s Justin DeMaria and Jake Reyer hit back to back singles. Zach Grof came in relief to try to get his team out of the inning unscaved.
With Grof on the mound, Demaria and Reyer advanced to second and third after a wild pitch. LIB’s four hitter Mike Scordo then drew a walk. With the based loaded, Anthony Dagnello stood strong in the box and got hit by a pitch to bring in the first run of the game. A batter later, Grof escaped the jam by forcing a ground ball to his shortstop.
Chris Mazi started the game for Long Island Baseball. Manzi pitched six scoreless innings and gave up six hits up to that point. He then came back out in the bottom of the seventh to try to finish what he started.
With a 1-0 lead Manzi immediately found himself in trouble after Anthony Faldetta led off the inning with a double. The next batter, Jack Sullivan, moved Faldetta over to third with a sacrifice bunt. With one out, Joe Braskey hit a pop up down the first base line which was corralled by LIB’s first baseman Anthony Dagnello with an incredible over-the-shoulder catch. Despite the ball not being hit too deep, Faldetta tagged up on the play and with his incredible speed he beat out the throw to tie the game at 1. Manzi stuck out the next batter to retire the third out and the game was called due to the time limit.
After the game Faldetta noted his teams fight despite the hot conditions. “Today we all worked hard as a team,” he said “It really wasn’t great offensively, but we battled through the whole game.”
