What an exciting ballgame it was despite the oppressive heat at Baseball Heaven. This was a semifinal match up in the Perfect Game New England Select 15U with a trip to the finals on the line. LIB Prime sent their ace, Sadier Vicioso, to the mound against Team Beast, who sent hard-throwing RHP Engel Silvestre.
Early on, it appeared this was all LIB Prime, who had the right offense approach against Silvestre. They took an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second on an RBI single by Sean Costello to score Tim Henning – who led off the inning with an infield single to second. Silvestre wound up striking out three in the inning, as he did in the first inning but the high pitch count in the heat certainly benefited the offense.
Vicioso, in the meantime, was dealing. The southpaw is every bit the hype, he struck out two in the first inning, third inning and fourth inning. He utilized his fastball-changeup combination to perfection against a stacked lineup that featured heavy hitters like Tori Martin and Co.
LIB Prime extended their lead to 3-0 in the third inning without the benefit of a hit. Patrick Reyes was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and stole second and third base to put himself 90 feet away. He then scored on a wild pitch. Another hit by pitch – this time of Nick Petrelli – and a stolen base put him in scoring position. Petrelli wound up scoring on an error by the catcher.
Now something crazy happened in the fourth inning that wound up playing a significant role in Team Beast’s comeback. After LIB got their lead off batter Nico Quiroz on and an RBI single made it 4-0, Beast dodged a huge bullet when a line drive wound up directly at the second base, Masai Marshall, who caught it, stepped on second and threw to first to complete the rare triple play. Despite the game still being 4-0, it allowed a glimmer of hope for Beast.
Vicioso went back out for the fifth and worked around a leadoff single to Jayden Rosario to throw a scoreless inning. He was starting to run on fumes, though, and it showed in the sixth inning when he allowed walks to the first two batters of the inning. A routine grounder to third was botched, loading the bases with one out. Sean Costello came on in relief. To his credit, he threw strikes and induced ground balls, unfortunately, his defense let him down. After a bases loaded walk and ground out to first brought in two runs, a routine grounder to short was thrown away, allowing the tying run to score. This also spoiled an outstanding effort by Vicioso, who was in line for the win.
Back to square one, LIB went to work. A one-out walk to Jayson Torres and a wild pitch put him in scoring position. The hot-hitting Caleb Aurelien made them pay with a walk-off RBI single to right field to deliver LIB Prime the 5-4 victory and send them into the finals against BODY ARMOR.
The win was exciting and entertaining and featured everything. LIB did lose in the finals, however, by the score of 4-1.
