What a fitting way to end an outstanding weekend of baseball at Gameday USA‘s All-Star Weekend.
JJ Palumbo reached on an infield single to score the game-winning run as the Red All-Stars overcame a 7-3 deficit in the fifth inning to win 8-7 to defeat the Gold All-Stars.
Things got off to a rocky start for the Red All Stars when starting pitcher Alex Marcoline struggled to find the strike zone. He walked the first three batters, coupled with an E6 that allowed four runs to score in the top of the first inning. He bounced back and retired the final two batters of the inning to prevent the game from getting out of hand.
Red bounced right back, though, with two runs in the bottom of the first inning with the runs coming on an error and a bases loaded walk to Michael Brocco. The bench was fired up as they cut the lead in the half, but they were unable to capitalize on the struggling starting pitcher. All told, that first inning took roughly 50 minutes.
The tempo of the game picked up from that point on.
Fast forward to the bottom of the fourth inning. Brocco reached on a two-base error and advanced to third on a wild pitch to get to third base. He came around to score on a sac fly by Corey Falk to make it 4-3.
The Gold All Stars got it back and then some in the top of the fifth.
They scored three runs on an infield single by Chris Valencia, a sac fly by Anthony Mancini and a steal of home to make it 7-3. At that point, it appeared that the clock was about to run out on the Red All Stars, but they did not falter.
They cut the deficit to 7-6 in the home half of the fifth on an RBI single by the red-hot Nicholas Del Vecchio, an infield single by Donald Whalen and a sac fly by Michael Villardi. This was huge, as they were able to make their comeback much more attainable.
In the top of the seventh, Gold extended their lead to 8-6 on an RBI ground out by Mancini to score Quan Williams.
With their backs firmly against the wall, they responded in a huge way.
Alex Marcoline and Ryan Devin drew walks to start the home half of the seventh. A ground out moved both the runners into scoring position. Donald Whalen came through with a clutch, two-run game-tying single to send the home crowd into a frenzy. After a strikeout for the second out and the prospect of going to extra innings staring them in the face, the Red All Stars got a hit by pitch of Nolan Curto to send JJ Palumbo to the plate. The catcher came through with an infield single to third to score the game-winning run and deliver the 8-7 victory for the Red All Stars.
The weekend was a celebration of the game of baseball. The players had a blast and made a ton of new friends.
They also had a skills competition earlier in the day. Below are the winners of the Home Run Derby.
8U- Cole Paulsen
9U- Grayson Aristy
10U- Jayden Perez
13/14U- Cole Haddock
