Our player of the game was Mike DeMarest. Mike came in to pitch in the second inning and provided five innings for the Lightning in their 7-3 win over NorEaster for the LICBL Championship. pic.twitter.com/tVoyuT6Rm5
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) August 4, 2018
The Long Island Lightning took down the Long Island NorEasters by a score of 7-3 to take home the Long Island Collegiate Baseball League Championship Saturday afternoon.
The Lightning had to overcome some early inning trouble to capture their victor. Starting pitcher George Rodriguez could only go a third of an inning after he allowed a hit and two walks to open the game. Troy Simpson had to come on in the first inning to get the Lightning out of the early jam and he struck out the next two batters to leave the bases loaded and keep NorEaster off the board.
When the Lightning came to bat for the first time, they wasted no time in putting runs up. Joe Piscitelli lead off with a walk and the next batter, Kyle Heiss, drove Piscitelli in with a triple. Next batter Andrew Florides brought home Heiss with a sacrifice fly to give the Lightning an early lead. They added one more when John Condon came in to score on an errant throw in a double play attempt.
The NorEasters quickly responded to the Lightning’s offense. In the top of the second, after a leadoff single by Santino Ycaza, Evan Mallon double Ycaza in to cut the Ligtning lead in half. After the next two batters each got hit by a pitch, the second NorEaster run came home on a bases loaded walk from Harrison Treble. The NorEasters took the lead after Dylan Judd hit a sacrifice fly to score Chris Wasson and tie the game at three apiece.
As NorEaster starting pitcher Jack Palma was continuing to work back from a rough first inning, the Lightning had to go to Mike Demarest, their third pitcher of the game in only the first two innings.
After two clean innings in a row from Palma, Sam Ilario knocked a fastball over the fence for a solo homerun and give the lead back to the Lightning 4-3.
That is all Demarest needed as he continued to sit down NorEaster hitters going five innings in relief after coming in in the second inning when his team was in need of solid pitching.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Lightning tacked on three more runs to put the game away. The big hit in the inning came from Nick Vella when he doubled in two runs after the Lightning loaded the bases with three consecutive singles. Jim Mendyk also added an RBI with a single to score the seventh Lightning run of the game.
The NorEaster couldn’t put together anymore offense after that as the three runs in the bottom of the fifth seemed to put the game on ice at that point and gave the Lightning the Long Island Collegiate Baseball League Championship.
