Final: Kings Park Pride 11, Massapequa Cyclones 6
Coach Brian on his team’s plate discipline and starting pitcher pic.twitter.com/FrYWfqXP9K
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) October 5, 2019
Coach Brian Frers preaches to his 11U Kings Park Pride about the importance of being selective at the plate and making other teams pay for their mistakes.
The young team took that to heart and instilled it at the plate in this morning’s 11-6 victory over the Massapequa Cyclones. The Pride drew 16 walks and were ultra-aggressive on the base paths which resulted in five runs scoring on wild pitches.
The opened up their scoring in the top of the second inning on a two-run single by Matthew Rizzo. The first two batters of the inning reached via walk, which is exactly what Coach Brian was referring to when he said to capitalize on their mistakes.
It helped that their starting pitcher, Everett Zarzicki was virtually untouchable. The hard-throwing youngster who is referred to as “man-child” by his coaches was terrific. He recorded seven of his nine outs via strikeout. Had the game been closer, there’s every reason to believe he would’ve been left in the game longer.
They opted to take him out because his offense exploded for seven runs in the top of the third inning on some issues by the opposing pitcher. He walked five batters, two runs came in on bases loaded free passes, three runs came in on wild pitches, and two more came in on an RBI single by Danny Adriano coupled with an error by the left fielder.
Credit to Massapequa, as they did not lie down.
With a new starting pitcher in place, they were able to get two runs on the board in the home half of the fourth thanks to an RBI single that resulted in a ‘little league home run’.
The Pride got both of those back in the fifth on two wild pitches to increase the lead to 11-2.
Facing the prospect of being run-ruled, they hit back-to-back home runs by Michael Lucchi and Michael Aris to show some resiliency. This made it 11-4, and they added two runs in the bottom of the sixth on an RBI single and an RBI ground out to make it 11-6, which is how this one would end.
