Scorps Season Comes To An End After Loss To Lightning
LEESBURG, Fla-- There is something great about the competition of playoff baseball, and at Pat Thomas Stadium Monday night, the Seminole County Scorpions battled against Leesburg Lightning for an absolute classic. Leesburg rallied late to beat Seminole County by a score of 4-2, ending the Scorpions 2019 campaign.
Quinton Martinez (Appalachian State) toed the rubber for Seminole County in this one and was sensational all night long. The big lefty went for seven innings of scoreless ball and added five strikeouts. He did a great job of locating his fastball and mixing up his pitches to keep batters off balance. Martinez believes he has grown as a pitcher this summer and looks to continue his success next season at Appalachian State.
“I am going to take what I did out here and bring it to the mound up at school said,” said Martinez. “At the end of the day it’s just baseball, you got to throw strikes and give your team a chance to win.”
Dylan Kelley (South Florida State) was just as good for the Lightning on the mound. Kelley went 5.2 innings, only allowed a run on three hits, and added eight punch outs. The one run he gave up came in the top of the fourth inning. After a leadoff double from Josh Reynolds (Embry-Riddle), Riley Wash (Pitt) followed with a single to put runners on the corners. Mike Christopoulos (Valdosta State) then stepped up to the plate and hit a ground ball to second base, scoring Reynolds from third to give the Scorpions a 1-0 lead.
That lead took them to the bottom of the eighth inning. Martinez ran out of pitches, and the right-hander Alex Carpenter (Eastern Florida State) made his way into the ballgame. Leesburg’s offense was running out of time but came through in the game’s most significant moment.
Parker Pillsbury (Chipola) worked a walk and advanced to second base on a stolen base. He then moved to third on a sacrifice fly. Nick Lewis (Valdosta State) followed with an RBI double down the left-field line to knot the game up at 1-1. Carpenter walked the next batter, and then made an excellent play in the field for out number two. With runners on second and third, Jarrett Backus (King Col) hit a two-RBI bloop single to center-field to give Leesburg its first lead of the game at 3-1. Later in the inning, the Lightning added an insurance run on an RBI double from Donte Wade (North Carolina A&T) to make it 4-1.
In the ninth, Seminole County had one last chance to keep its season alive. Christopoulos led off with a walk, and Hayden Cross (Appalachian State) singled. With two outs, Wilfredo Alvarez (FAU) hit a ground ball to first base, and it got underneath the glove of the first basemen to score a run to make it 4-2. However, with go-ahead run at the plate, Parker Smith (Rollins) flew out to center field to end the game. Leesburg now will face the Winter Park Diamond Dawgs for a best of three-game series starting Tuesday night.
Seminole County had its ups and downs all summer long but continued to compete every single game. Head coach Jeff Lemon thought the team gave great effort all summer long and hopes the experiences they had here this summer will help them for their college’s teams next year.
“The entire season these guys came to play every single day,” said Lemon. “I can’t say enough about the good things that they did, especially the development throughout the entire summer. You can see a lot of guys knocked the rust off early and got themselves ready for fall baseball, and I look forward to seeing these guys succeed come springtime.”
Matt McClure (Penn State)
