Southside-Coach Davis’ speech to his Atlantic Coast Stingrays was a simple one, “despite our record, we are still a good ball team, records don’t always reflect that, this ball club can beat anybody in this tournament and beyond”. His team bought into his speech and was able to capture a big 5-0 win over the Mandarin Mustangs on Tuesday night at Stingray Bay.
Mandarin, though not the home team, started off pitching first, up to the mound was junior right-handed pitcher Ayden Sciandria and starting for Atlantic Coast was senior right-handed pitcher Lance Bolten. Both pitchers were able to end each inning with three up and three down. Sciandria with two strikeouts, one swinging and one looking. Bolten only had one strikeout with a couple of the pitches being low to the ground almost in the dirt, his teams defense helped him out of those tough counts.
In the top of the third inning at the bottom of Atlantic Coasts’ lineup the bats started to heat up, first hit of the night by any team came by Drew Whitaker, with a single up the middle. After a sacrifice bunt and another quick pop fly to center, Whitaker seemed to have been stranded on 2nd base after stealing it on a low pitch, now the Stingrays are about to leave a runner on base with two outs. Back to the top of the order with Cameron Rosario hitting a single and bringing in Whitaker. Rosario was able to steal 2nd on another low pitch by Sciandria. Chandler Moeller got up to bat and rips a double and scores Rosario and Jack Edwards, who had been walked previously. Sciandria was able to strikeout the next Stingray swinging to end the inning but by that time the Stingrays were up 3-0.
The bottom of the 4th started to look a little dicey for the Stingray as the Mustangs were able to get their first person on base. Johnny Rego was walked on a 3-1 count. Yet Bolten was able to compose himself and strikeout the next batter looking, leaving the lone player on base.
The 5th inning didn’t start off the best for the Mustangs where Evan Cutshall was able to get a triple off of his hit and an overthrow to 1st base. At this point Coach Stewart came out to the mound to change pitchers for the Mustangs but he was quickly retired after 3 batters, as two of them had base hits. Ian Puttnick was able to double out to left field and score two runners to bring the score up to 5-0.
Bolten was throwing a no-hitter up until the bottom of the 7th when a Mustang batter was able to single to left field but was caught trying to steal 2nd and was picked off to end the game.
Atlantic Coast now stands at 3-4 on the season after their 5-1 victory over Stanton on Wednesday. The Stingrays are getting hot, just in time for the Spring Break heat wave.
