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Sanford, Fla. - The Squeeze improved to 6-9 and are on a three game win streak after beating the Winter Park Diamond Dawgs 10-5 and 10-4 in a doubleheader at Historic Sanford Memorial Stadium on Tuesday.

 

Offense was riddled all throughout the games as the Squeeze now find themselves in sole possession of fourth place in the FCSL standings following a sweep of this three game series. The doubleheader was played in two seven-inning games due to a weather delay makeup from last week.

 

Game 1:

 

The first of the doubleheader started off with a bang. In the top of the first inning, Luis Rivero (St Leo) belted a solo shot over the left center field wall to get the scoring started. Roberto Odor (St Leo) came home on a wild pitch to give the Diamond Dawgs an early 2-0 lead.

Winter Garden did not let the hot start deter them from responding in a big way. Five RBI hits across the second and third frames propelled them to eight runs in those innings and a six run advantage.

 

Drew Pynes (St Petersburg) spearheaded this onslaught when he crushed a deep fly ball into left center in each of the aforementioned innings, one to the left and right of the scoreboard.

 

Pynes was incredible all day long and finished the first game 2-3 with two runs scored, two hits (both homers), four runs batted in and a walk.

 

“I was really just trying to keep it simple,” said Pynes after the first game about what went right for him at the plate. “You know, seeing the ball and hitting it well. They left a mistake over the plate and I handled it.”

 

Zacharias Walker (Hillsborough CC) also hit a four-bagger of his own in the third inning to extend the lead to 8-2 for the hosts.

 

“I picked something up in my first at-bat,” Walker said after game one about what led him to his line-drive homer over the right field fence. “I made sure that if the pitcher did it again, he wasn’t going to get away with it.”

 

Canyon Marcewicz (Florida Southern College) forced an RBI fielder’s choice in the top half of the fourth and Winter Park tacked on two more runs in the sixth to cut the deficit to 9-5 late in the shortened matchup, but it was too late.

 

Winter Garden held them off in the final inning after scoring a 10th run in the sixth frame to ultimately win 10-5 and take the series win over the Diamond Dawgs.

 

The second of this doubleheader was started a little over thirty minutes after the conclusion of game one.

 

Game 2:

 

With the sun slowly but surely on its way down, the final game of the back-to-back and series between the league’s Winters commenced about a half hour after the first finished.

 

This contest began an eerily similar way compared to the 4:00 matchup. Gabe Young (University of West Georgia) brought in Odor to score and the Diamond Dawgs ended up seeing another first inning dinger leave the park.

 

In the top of the first, Joel Collado sent a high fly ball out into left center field to put the visitors up by three after only one frame to begin game three of this series.

 

Also similar to the afternoon contest, the Squeeze responded in a massive way. In the home half of the second inning, they put up six runs to flip the score and take a 6-3 lead early.

 

Winter Garden did that after Brady White (Folsom Lake 2025) hit a 2RBI single, Drew Pynes walked with the bases loaded, and Mason Mojica (Polk State) hit a bases-clearing RBI double to continue their momentum from earlier in the day.

 

Both Squeeze starting pitchers managed to stay composed after giving up multiple runs in both contests’ beginning frames. Especially in game two, as the Diamond did not score any more runs until the sixth inning.

 

The hosts put the rest of their ten runs on the board across the third, fourth, and fifth innings, as they scored four more times to put the stamp on the day.

 

Pynes also carried his hot bat over from the first game. In the bottom of the fourth, he hit yet another solo shot past the scoreboard in left center to give his team the lead 9-3. His three homers in this one day put him in sole possession of the league lead as of the end of play on Tuesday.

 

As previously mentioned, Winter Park had another runner round the bases in the penultimate inning when Kai Lwin (Florida Atlantic) hit an RBI single to make it a 10-4 ballgame. Unfortunately, the deficit being where it was at this point in the matchup, in addition to a shortage of pitchers, proved to much for the visitors to overcome.

 

Winter Garden gets a rest day and begins arguably its most important series against Leesburg on June 19 at home at Horizon High School at 6:30 p.m.

 

Rickie Potts II (Syracuse University)