NJCAA BASEBALL: Falcons start fast in World Series
May 28—For most of the late afternoon in Enid, Oklahoma, on Saturday, the Lackawanna College Falcons found themselves in a fight.
They were fighting for every scoring opportunity they could find. Ace starting pitcher Kyle Scott was more hard-nosed than he was dominant.
Nothing came easy for the No. 8 seed Falcons against No. 9 Glendale Community College. Not until it all started falling together in the seventh inning.
North Pocono graduate Zach Walsh keyed a four-run breakthrough of a seventh with a hard two-out triple to right, and the Falcons smashed three home runs to support the gritty Scott on the way to a 9-1 win in eight innings in their first-round game in the NJCAA Division II World Series at David Allen Memorial Ballpark.
It marked the program's second win in their fifth trip to the World Series, and first since 2012. With it, the Falcons advance to face the tournament's top seed, Heartland Community College, in a winner's bracket game Sunday at 8:15 p.m.
In the end, they did it with a barrage of extra-base hits, clutch pitching and a series of key defensive plays that combined to keep the Division II West District champion Gauchos at bay.
But when Walsh stepped to the plate in that seventh inning, the Falcons were clinging to a 3-1 lead fueled by a pair of home runs from red-hot third baseman Dennis Pierce. One, a two-run shot in the third off Glendale's crafty southpaw starter Brock Jessup, handed the Falcons a 2-1 lead in the third inning. The second was a solo blast to nearly the same spot down the left field line, a hanging breaking ball from Jessup that Pierce crushed to extend the lead to two runs.
It didn't look like the Falcons were about to go on a run even as Walsh, the Region XIX Player of the Year, strode to the plate in the seventh.
Jessup retired the first two batters of the inning before shortstop Brayden D'Amico hit a high bloop that somehow found empty grass out of shortstop Devlin Smalanskas' reach in shallow left center.
D'Amico stole second, and Walsh got a 2-2 fastball that caught too much of the plate. He drove it down the line, into the corner, and it kicked past right fielder Matthew Kamins. D'Amico scored easily and the speedy Walsh slid triumphantly into third with a triple, chasing Jessup.
The first two pitches reliever Ruben Macias threw sent the Falcons on their way to a lopsided win. Pierce knocked in his third run of the game with a sharp single to left that brought home Walsh to make it 5-1, and left fielder Christian Rush followed by tattooing another hanging curve over the wall in left, a two-run blast that pushed the lead to six.
Catcher Cole Casamento stroked a two-run double against Macias in the eighth to push the lead to a game-ending eight runs.
For most of the first six innings, Lackawanna did all it could to prevent the Gauchos from converting on those same opportunities.
They managed just two hits against Scott, the biggest being third baseman Brayan Espinoza's two-out RBI double to left in the third. Scott issued seven walks and had to pitch himself out of several jams: Two on, one out in the first; a leadoff triple in the second; two on, two out in the fifth; and runners on second and third, one out in the sixth.
That sixth inning ended with a momentum-changing play for the Falcons. Catcher Jose Romero drilled a 2-2 pitch up the middle, seemingly ticketed for center and a game-tying two-run single. But Falcons second baseman Ranciel Ventura made a leaping grab on the run to his right to make a slick catch and end the inning.
From there, the Lackawanna bullpen settled in. Matthew McElligott worked around a leadoff walk to pitch a scoreless seventh, and fellow right-hander Jace Cunnane got through the eighth with the help of Walsh, who threw designated hitter Preston Lucas out at the plate trying to score on a fly ball.
Scott allowed just one run on two hits in six innings, but his seven walks and four strikeouts pushed his tournament-opening pitch count to 124.
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