An inside-the-Park 2-R HR for Dan Defonte and Batting 1.000 takes an early 2-0 lead in the first ! pic.twitter.com/G3N3AM2lwr
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) October 6, 2018
“He hit bombs” is one way to put it.
Those were the words of winning pitcher Spyro Matarangas in regards to the amazing performance from cleanup hitter Danny Defonte. The young slugger smacked 2 HRs in Batting 1.000’s 11-2 victory over the Oil City Bandits, including a two-run shot in the first inning to open up the scoring.
They never looked back after that, opening the game up with a six-spot in the second inning to put it out of reach, especially with Matarangas throwing strikes, working quickly and fielding his position very well on a handful of comebackers to the mound.
“The improvement has been unbelievable,” said their Head Coach. “In the summer we struggled a lot–lots of losses, lots of blowouts, but they’ve really started to come together. We are 5-1 to start the fall season, so it’s really impressive and I’m proud of the way they’ve been playing,” he added.
The second inning was really the difference in the game.
Lucas Hernandez started things off with a triple to right field and scored on Ryan Murrin‘s RBI single to right to extend the lead to 3-0. After a walk and hit by pitch, Mike Rossi drew a bases loaded walk to bring in a run and a wild pitch brought in another. No. 3 hitter Ethan Vo ripped one off the pitcher’s glove that wound up scoring two run’s to open up a 7-0 lead. He showed some hustle when an errant pick off throw scooted down the right field line and he scampered all the way around to score his team’s eighth run of the afternoon.
In the next inning, they continued to tack on the runs.
Alonzo Espinet smoked a double to right center field and he came around to score on an RBI ground out to second base by Murrin. A two-out RBI double to right field by Vin Castellano brought in Alex Rossi to extend the lead to 10-0.
The Bandits got on the board in the home half of the third on an RBI single by Aidan Shaughnessy to score Jacob Landry. They added another on a wild pitch that scored Nick Alvarez. Matarangas settled in after that and let his offfense get back to work.
More specifically, he let Defonte get to the plate and smash another HR–this time to right-center field to extend the lead to 11-2.
Young Spyro went back out to the mound, worked around a lead off single and put an exclamation point on the victory with a come backer to the mound. They will be back in action today against Docs Baseball as they continue their pursuit to take home the crown of the East Coast Labor Day Tournament.
