sfoggi posted on July 27, 2011 20:48
SANFORD, Fla. (July 27, 2011) - It was a day of firsts at Sanford Memorial Stadium on Wednesday night as the Lightning lost to Sanford 5-2.
Kurtis Gens (Seminole State College), who was called up from the Thunder a few weeks ago after originally starting the season off with DeLand, made his first start of the season and did an admirable job over five innings of work. Similar to the work Ethan Bader (Lake Sumter CC) did the night before in his spot start, Gens was able to continuously keep the River Rat bats at bay. He pitched into the sixth inning and held the River Rats scoreless through five.
Gens was in line for the win when he was removed from the game as the Lightning held onto a slim 2-0 lead.
The first run was scored in the top of the fifth when Nick Octavi (Harford CC), who came in to replace Tom Sicking (UTPA) mid at-bat, connected for his first extra base hit of the season. The double scored Troy Drummond (Delware State), who was on second. Octavi added another hit in the seventh inning and finished the game 2-for-2.
Leesburg added another run in the sixth when Hunter Mayfield (Rollins) scored after reaching on back-to-back singles. along with Mike Miller (Dallas Baptist). A groundball off the bat of Chase Durham (Howard College) scored Mayfield and the Lightning lead was now 2-0.
The 25-12 Lightning came unglued in the bottom of the sixth, however, and Sanford pounced on the Leesburg mistakes and put up four runs. After issuing a leadoff double and a walk, Gens was replaced by Mike Clutterbuck (Macomb CC), who came in with two on and no outs. The following was not the best inning of the season to put it lightly. Two more hits, two errors, a wild pitch and a balk brought in four runs. Sanford would only score once more in the eighth inning, but the damage was done in the sixth. Two of the runs were charged to Gens and two were charged to Clutterbuck, who settled down after the rough inning to throw another inning.
With the Lightning down 5-2, the team put runners on in each of the last three innings, but once again couldn’t find that one big hit they so desperately needed.
As has been a common theme in these frustrating Lightning losses, the team left 10 on base in a game that was very much up for grabs all night.
The silver lining of the game was Jacob Tillotson’s (Florida) 2-for-5 performance. The two hits give him 55 for the season, breaking the all-time single season record held, ironically, by Sanford’s Tyler Benzel who had 53 last summer. Tillotson has been a staple in the Lightning lineup and his name will be etched into the record books, but was anticlimactically accomplished on a losing night.
The only consolation on the night is that Winter Park also lost by way of new Leesburg hero and Freedom slugger Matt Mattone (Palm Beach St.), who hit a walk off home run in the ninth inning. With both teams losing, Leesburg maintains a one and a half game lead over the Diamond Dawgs.
The Lightning will face Mattone and the Freedom Thursday (July 28) at Orel Hershiser Field at 7:00 p.m. before the final showdown against Winter Park at home on Friday night.
Nick Beardi (Medaille College)