It was a comeback for the ages on Saturday afternoon at Mitchel Field in the 11u division of the ‘Beat the Heat‘ tournament.
This was a tale of two games. There was the first half of the game that was all Team Beast, and the second half that was all Oil City Bandits, as OCB came away with the incredible 14-13 victory – in a game that was only four innings due to the time limit.
In the top of the first, the Bandits jumped out to an early 1-0 lead when Michael Amato got things going with a walk, stolen base and then came around to score on an RBI single by Aiden Perry to left field. This ballgame was far from over at this point – in fact it was just the appetizer.
Beast Black responded with three runs in the home half of the first. Anthony Kotarski singled and scored on Nick Tsialis‘ well-struck RBI double to center field. They added another run on an RBI single by Connor Dekenipp and an RBI double by Ronan D’Amico.
OCB was able to get one of those runs back in the second inning on an RBI ground out by Aiden Perry which scored Jack Klang, who led off with a walk and stole second.
In the bottom of the second inning, Beast Black appeared to run away with the ballgame. They sent 14 batters to the plate and scored nine times. Cody Capone, Jake Mormino, Connor Dekenipp, Brian McMichael and Oren Haik all had RBI hits to open the game up.
In the top of the third, Oil City Bandits faced a turning point in the game. Either they could risk being run-ruled, or start chipping away at the lead.
They chose the latter.
Needing some offense, they posted a nine-spot with runs coming on an RBI single by Michael Amato, Aiden Perry, RBI walks drawn by Tyler Riopel, Joseph Tambini and Aiden Piltch to make it 12-7 Ian Olivo drove in another run with an RBI ground out to make it 12-8 and Jake Giddings crushed a long two-run double to get them so close they could smell it at 12-010. They turned the lineup over, which brought up Michael Amato. He singled home a run to make it 12-11. Now clinging to the most narrow of leads, Beast Black finally escaped the ining with a popout to first.
In the bottom of the third with the time limit approaching, Beast Black needed to have a long turn at bat to let the 10ish remaining minutes expire. They came extremely close to it, as they drew two walks walks and had some long turns at bat but ultimately the inning ended on a strikeout with two minutes remaining. That was good enough to play another inning.
OCB made the most of their opportunity. After the first batter was retired, they used four consecutive walks and a two-run error to take a 14-12 lead and give themselves a little bit of breathing room as the game headed to its final act.
In the home half of the fourth, Beast Black was able to get one more run on the board, which scored on an unearned run, but the final batter, Brian McMichael was retired on a close play at first base. The Bandits completed the most unlikely of comebacks and will now play in the semfinals tomorrow at 9am against Batting 1.000 Seminoles.
