by Salvatore D’Onofrio
The Long Island Storm scored five times in the first inning and never looked back on their way to a 6-4 defeat of the Red Devils in a 16U Boys of Summer game last night at Cantiague Park.
Brandon Paider took the bump for the Storm and was dominant in his three innings of work.
In the first, Brandon was able to get out of the jam by picking up Darlyn Liberato at second-base after his lead-off bunt.
In the bottom half of first, the Storm bats lit up. The starting pitcher for the Red Devils Luis Reyes and his defense struggled early as he allowed a lead-off walk, two errors by the Red Devil defense,and two more walks. The Storm was able to take the lead 3-0 because of an RBI double from Will Pellegrino and an RBI single by Brian Baek. This was all for the starting pitcher Luis Reyes. The Storm surge was not done yet. They kept the pressure on by an RBI single from Kevin Juncal and an RBI walk from Ayden Worrell extended the lead to 5-0 after the first.
After a scoreless top of the second for the Red Devils, Alex Loprinzi joined in on the hit parade as he also had an RBI infield-single in the second. This allowed the Storm to take a 6-0 lead after two innings of play.
This is all Brandon Paider needed.
In the three innings that Paider pitched, he struck out four batters, allowing one hit (bunt single), and not allowing a walk.
“I felt really confident on the mound today,” said Paider. “I came in wanting to challenge the hitters and give my defense a chance. They had my back tonight and it was a full team effort tonight”, Parker went on to say.
In the fourth inning, the Red Devil bats did not have to see Paider anymore. Hard-throwing Miles Tyson came into pitch for the Storm. A lead-off walk from Dylan Liberato and a double by Albert Rodriguez gave the Devil offense a chance to cut the deficit. Erick Aguilera came to plate to do some damage and he did just that. Aguilera hit a ball off the top of the fence to score Liberato and Rodriguez. This cut the Storm lead to four runs. The Red Devils were not done yet. Back to back fielder-choices by the Storm defense allowed Brian Baek and Aguilera to score. This made the deficit 6-4 heading to the bottom half of the fourth.
New pitcher Ryan Secilmis for the Storm was able to come in and shut the door in the final two innings for the Storm.
After a 1,2,3 inning in the fifth inning, Secilmis needed three more outs to capture the victory for the Storm.
A fired up Red Devil offense did not go down without a fight. After a HBP to lead-off the inning, Jay Perelta was able to get a hold of one and hit a laser double through the left-field gap. With runners at second and third with one out, trailing two, and in the last inning, Secilmis needed to make a pitch and get his team out of trouble. Secilmis closed the door on the late threat from the Red Devils with a strikeout and fielding his own position to end the game on a ground ball to himself.
The hot start for the Storm was too much for the fiery Red Devils to come back from.
Up next for the Long Island Storm (6-4) will be the Long Titans Hough (0-3-1) on Wednesday afternoon at Baseball Heaven. As for the Red Devils (3-5), they also look to bounce back against the Titans as the Red Devils will clash with them next Thursday night at Mitchel Park Field.
