by James Ryder
It was a very evenly matched affair for much of Sunday’s game between the 10u Levittown Rays and Middle Country Mustangs at McLaren Memorial Park.
After a scoreless first inning, both teams took turns exchanging runs through the next two and a half innings. The Mustangs would take a one run lead in one frame, and the Rays would respond with a run to tie it in the next frame. Eventually, Levittown was done settling for a tie ball game. They went for four runs in the fourth inning to take their first lead of the game. They would hang onto that lead and expand on it by scoring another four in the fifth, where the game was called once the final run crossed the plate, resulting in an 11-3 Rays victory.
The back and forth scoring began in the top of the second inning thanks to a couple of defensive mishaps. Mustangs batter Colton Hostetler hit a single to center field and went home on a ground ball by Eddie Bonilla. The would be out number three was fielded by the shortstop, but dropped by the first baseman, allowing the run to score. In the bottom half, Rays pitcher Jefferson Biener led off with a double to right field. He stole second and attempted to steal third. The throw to get him out went past third base into left field, allowing Biener to score and tie it at 1-1.
Middle Country took the lead back in the third with an RBI this time around. Derek Xikis walked before stealing second and third base. He came home on a single to CF from Brayden Franco. Again, the Rays would tie it 2-2 in the next frame. Tyler Neal hit a triple to get Levittown going. Back to back walks from Jayden Keyes and Sergio Ryan loaded the bases, and another walk two batters later from Gus Sofronis brought in Neal.
The Mustangs took one final lead in the top of the fourth on another two errors. Hostetler got on base again, this time on a fielding error by the pitcher on a comeback grounder. A single by Bonilla advanced Hostetler to third and he scored when a pop up to second base was dropped. Now down 3-2 in the bottom of the fourth, the Rays finally took the lead by stringing together four runs on four singles and a double. Biener and Ethan Shapiro had back to back hits, an infield single and a single to CF respectively, to leadoff the rally. River Sayaves drew a walk to load the bases for Neal, who hit a 2 RBI double to take a 4-3 lead. On the throw back into the infield, the ball got away from the pitcher, allowing a third run to come in and Neal to advance to third. Vin Silvestri followed this up with an RBI single. To top it off, Matt Marmo too hit am RBI single. This brought the score to 7-3.
Biener struck out three straight batters in the top of the fifth, leading to his teams continued newfound firepower at the plate in the bottom of the fifth. Sofronis reached on another error by the Mustang pitcher and scored on an RBI single by Jim Cordiner. A ground ball from Biener tipped off the glove of the first baseman, letting Cordiner reach the plate. Finally, the game was called after Aiden Raab’s 2 RBI double.
Rays blow up for another 4 runs, win this game 11-3 with the called in the fifth inning. Here are Coaches Jeff an Jim on what got the bats going late: pic.twitter.com/KJ4cVMl7ct
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) July 28, 2019
The Mustangs had an advantage early on in the game by being the first team to score. They made it difficult for the Rays to gain a lead by continuously taking the lead back following tying runs on the Rays behalf. Therefore, it definitely stung, pun intended, when the Mustangs let this game get far out of reach in the final two innings. Final Score: Levittown 11, Middle Country 3.
