sfoggi posted on July 20, 2011 20:59
DELAND, Fla. (July 20, 2011) - The Winter Park Diamond Dawgs (19-8) defeated the DeLand Suns (17-14) 8-3 at Melching Field at Conrad Park on Wednesday night.
Winter Park outhit DeLand 16-5 en route to their 19th victory of the season. It is the 14th time this season that the Diamond Dawgs have reached double digit hits in a game.
“We were putting ourselves in good hitter’s counts,” said Head Coach Kevin Davidson.
Diamond Dawgs starting pitcher Brad Renner (Hillsborough Community College) notched his second victory of the season by giving up four hits and no earned runs in six innings of work.
“I had a lot of sink on my fastball today,” said Renner.
He also struck out three batters, and did not a walk anyone.
“Renner’s a guy, come playoff time, that we are going to rely on,” said Davidson.
Suns starting pitcher Trevor Berry (Santa Fe Community College) received his second loss of the season after being chased from the game in 2 2/3 innings. Berry surrendered four earned runs on six hits.
Winter Park scored in the top of the first inning, despite the fact that the first two batters of the game did not reach base. After a pair of two-out singles by B.J. Zimmerman (University of Tampa) and Austin Chubb (Florida Southern) put runners on the corners, Zimmerman scored while Chubb got in a rundown, even though he was picked off by Berry. Zimmerman went 2-for-3 with two runs scored and an RBI. Chubb went 2-for-4 with two runs scored as well.
The Suns took their only lead of the game in the bottom of the second inning when they scored three unearned runs on three hits and two errors.
However, Winter Park did not let a couple of defensive mishaps faze them, as they had an immediate answer for DeLand’s early three spot. With three runs already home in the inning and two outs, Alex Cruz (Georgia Tech) drove in the Dawgs fourth run of the inning on a single to centerfield. Cruz went 2-for-5 on the night.
In the top of the fifth inning, Winter Park scored one run to extend their lead by three.
DeLand could not break the silence, as they could only muster two hits from the fifth inning on.
Meanwhile, the Dawgs would tack on run in the eighth inning to make it a 7-3 game. In the final inning of play, Spencer Haynes (University of Central Florida) brought home another insurance run to put the Dawgs up by five with an RBI single to centerfield.
Winter Park has now won two games in a row and will begin their final home stand of the season this Thursday, July 21 against the Leesburg Lightning at 7 p.m.
Mitchell Adams (UCF)