BRADFORD ? There are always bound to be bumps in the road when a team is making history.
Ridley Area Little League is quite aware of that. It lost its first game of the Section 8 tournament before roaring back with four straight wins to cement a spot in the Pennsylvania Little League tournament, the first time that an RALL team has made it to that point.
Looks like RALL will have to take that familiar road again after a 6-4 loss to Lionville in the states opener for both teams at the University of Pittsburgh-Bradford.
RALL needs a win today against North Pocono, a 13-1 loser to Warwick in its opener, to have a chance of advancing to the semifinals. RALL will send out Isaiah Payton, who worked an inning of relief Monday, as its starter. Lionville tangles with Warwick at 7 p.m.
To get to 2-0, Warwick will have to learn something from RALL?s downfall: Try to avoid Michael Rodriguez in any way, shape or form. Rodriguez was masterful on the mound for three innings, striking out six batters against a pair of walks and a Tyler Kehoe single. The scary part, though, was that he was even better at the plate.
Rodriguez parked solo home runs in the second and fourth innings, the latter on a line drive that smashed into the scoreboard in left field some 320 feet away. RALL couldn?t get away from the tall Rodriguez, who finished the day 3-for-3 with three runs scored and two RBIs to go with his tremendous pitching line.
Making things even easier on the mound for Rodriguez was the fact that his team never trailed. Joe Cestare led off the bottom of the first by taking Logan Keller?s offering over the left field wall and after Rodriguez singled, Joe Janick launched a moon shot to right field for a 3-0 lead. Five batters later, third baseman Zach Orris drew a bases-loaded walk to push the lead to 4-0 before Rodriguez?s first home run an inning later left RALL staring down a five-run deficit.
?It was definitely (a) confidence (booster) because I knew I had the lead and I didn?t have to put that much stress on myself,? Rodriguez said. ?But I wasn?t surprised to see (RALL) battle back at all. I knew they had the fight in them.?
That fight to came to light when Rodriguez exited the game. Johnny DeMucci led off the fourth inning with a walk, and Matt Headley pushed him to third on a single. From there, Cole Dumont did the honors of breaking the string of goose eggs on the board by ripping a two-run double to left field that energized RALL.
?It was tough at first, but we?re a good enough team that we can come back from any deficit,? said Dumont, who also reached base when he was hit by a Rodriguez pitch. ?It really doesn?t matter how much we?re down by. We?re going to fight and do as well as we can to come back and win a baseball game.? Continued...
Rodriguez pushed the lead back to four with his majestic second home run in the bottom of the fourth, but RALL kept putting that fight on display an inning later when it sliced the four-run deficit in style. Second baseman Tim Campbell misplayed Kehoe?s hot smash to put the RALL leadoff man on, then Keller got a modicum of revenge by joining in on the home run derby. He laced a Cestare pitch over the left-field wall to make it 6-4.
?We?ve played games where we were down and we battled back,? Keller said. ?In sectionals, we were down 4-0 in the first inning and we scored eight runs. We?re just going to have to win the next two games and after that, we?ll go back and hopefully play (Lionville) in the championship.?
RALL looked taken aback when it fell into the 5-0 hole. A team that averages nearly 10 runs a game, the surprised looks on RALL?s young faces were understandable. Manager John DeMucci?s juggling of the pitching staff didn?t go like he?d hoped it would, especially with Keller having to throw 30 pitches to get out of the first inning, but today represents a chance to get things right again.
?It?s going to be tough,? said Kehoe, who was 2-for-4 with a run scored and struck out four in 22/3 strong innings of relief. ?We?re going to have to come back (today) and put up a couple runs. (The deficit) was a big shock. We made a couple mistakes in the field, but we bounced back.?
It seems to be a common theme for RALL.
Source: http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2013/07/22/sports/doc51edb999e87ea255316143.txt
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