Championship Pool - Game #1

Lightning Baseball vs. Braden River Hurricanes @ Coastal Carolina University

Monday July 25, 2005

In the first round of pool play within the championship bracket, the 13U Lightning had to square off against 3 teams from Florida. On Monday the 25th, the Braden River Hurricanes fell victim, 12-1, as the Lightning bats bounced back from a tough second game on Sunday afternoon.

The first half of this match-up saw each starting pitcher breeze through the opposing lineups as the score remained 0-0 until Evan Bunker (Topsfield, MA) started off the top of the fourth inning with a base hit, advanced to second on a hard hit ball by Greg Ladd (Danvers, MA), and scored the first run of the contest on an RBI single from Geoff Lynch (Georgetown, MA). T.J. Patrikas (Danvers, MA) followed Lynch with a walk and both runners scored later in the inning on singles by Gavin Mahoney (Winthrop, MA) and Chris Splinter (Middleton, MA). In the top of the seventh, the Lightning offense batted around as the team collected five more runs on eight hits and put the game away. Jason Federico (Wakefield, MA) and Lynch led the attack as both players had 3 hits apiece.

Kyle Levesque (Manchester, NH) shut the Hurricanes down with a complete game, 4-hitter. Levesque, who was injured for most of the season, came through for the Lightning striking out five and allowing only two walks.