Original link: http://www.necbl.com/view/necbl/news-1185/news_537161
Martha’s Vineyard Sharks 19, Danbury Westerners 3
The one-seed Martha’s Vineyard Sharks bounced back from a Game 1 Sunday night loss and routed the four-seed Danbury Westerners to tie up the best-of-three Southern Division Finals at Rogers Park on Monday night. Sharks starting pitcher Ryan Vanderhei (University of Kansas) tossed a gem on the road to keep his team’s championship hopes alive (7 innings pitched, 8 hits, 3 earned runs, 3 walks, 6 strikeouts), and fellow starter Jacob Marshall (Le Moyne College) was roughed up by Martha’s Vineyard for the Westerners (1 IP, 3 H, 8 ER, 4 BB, 1 K).
The Sharks wasted no time blowing the ballgame open in the top of the second inning by putting up 11 runs on Danbury, an unprecedented campaign that featured a three-run home run by catcher Jorge Corona (Louisiana Tech University), a pair of two-run doubles hit by shortstop Jake Berger (Harvard University) and left fielder Brad Grenkoski (Georgia Tech University) plus an error committed by the Westerners. In the home half of the third inning, Danbury catcher Jack Payton (University of Louisville) doubled to drive home his squad’s first run of the night and cut their deficit to 10 runs.
Another error committed by the Westies in the visitor’s half of the fourth inning made it 12-1 before Danbury scored twice more in the bottom of the same inning by way of a solo home run by right fielder Henry Strmecki (University of Dayton) and an RBI double by center fielder Justin Jordan (Sacred Heart University). The Sharks tallied another run in the sixth inning and two more in the seventh via a sacrifice fly hit by third baseman Grant Norris (Duke University) and a wild pitch thrown by Danbury. An RBI single hit by Berger in the top of the seventh made it a 16-3 contest before the Sharks tallied three more runs via three bases-loaded walks drawn by Berger, second baseman Jadyn Jackson (Georgia Tech) and first baseman Michael Brown (University of Washington) to propel both teams into a win-or-go-home affair on Tuesday night at the Shark Tank.
North Shore Navigators 4, Upper Valley Nighthawks 2
The five-seed North Shore Navigators needed just seven innings of rain-shortened baseball to upset and sweep the Northern Division Finals in Game 2 against the two-seed Upper Valley Nighthawks at Fraser Field on Monday night. Navigators starting pitcher Austin Amaral (Stetson University) earned the win and tossed all six innings for North Shore up until the calling of the affair (5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K), and fellow starter Jack Keenan (Marist College) suffered the loss, lasting three innings for the higher-seed Nighthawks (2 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 4 K).
The Navigators tallied three of their four runs in the bottom of the second inning thanks to an RBI from outfielder Dylan Brazil (Stetson University), a wild pitch thrown by Keenan and an RBI single by infielder Jonathan Luders (Seton Hall University) to take an early lead. Another wild pitch thrown by Upper Valley in the home half of the fourth recorded North Shore’s fourth run of the weather-shortened contest before a wild pitch committed by the Navs in the visitor’s half of the sixth inning and an RBI single hit by Nighthawks outfielder Kyle Novak (James Madison University) brought the score to 4-2 before Mother Nature had other plans for this baseball game in Massachusetts. The Navs advance to the NECBL championship round in their first summer back with the NECBL in one decade and their first Fay Vincent, Sr. Cup series appearance since 2010.
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