Goliath Goes Down; Thunderbolts Slay Giants 6-5 in Playoff Thriller
GAITHERSBURG, JULY 23—The Silver Spring-Takoma Thunderbolts (11-26) had a tough task to handle last night at Criswell Automotive Field. The Gaithersburg Giants (17-21) were previously 5-2 against the TBolts, and had outscored them by a combined 26 runs in their seven regular season duels. In a highly touted play-in matchup, the TBolts and Giants gave the Criswell crowd a show to behold.
Head Coach Brock Hunter harped on how crucial it would be for the Thunderbolts to score early on in this game. Considering both teams rested on Thursday, they would each be recharged and ready to rumble.
“I think we’re either gonna come out hot, or Gaithersburg is gonna come out hot—especially after a two day break. So, we’ll see what happens,” Hunter said before first pitch.
Luckily for Hunter, the first inning began with a strike of lightning from the Thunderbolts. On the third pitch of the game, Ripken League All-Star Gabe Pegues (Lynchburg) parachuted a leadoff home run to left-center field. This was the first leadoff homer the Thunderbolts have hit all season, and it could not have come in a more magnificent moment.
Pegues hit his homer off Giants starting pitcher Owen Singer (Marymount). The southpaw has seen supreme success the past two seasons against Silver Spring-Takoma, but looked shaky last night. In total, Singer strummed four innings, allowing six hits, three earned runs, and three walks.
For Silver Spring-Takoma, Jacob Seek (Chesapeake) made his fourth start against the Giants this summer. With a brilliant defense behind him, the lefty looked crispy at Criswell. Seek through four and one-third innings, struck out three, allowed five hits, and surrendered two earned runs.
With runners on the corners in the top of the second, third baseman Nolan Kutney (UMBC) hit a grounder to short. Gaithersburg got the force at second, but the throw by Miguel Leon (Maryland) skipped by first base. This allowed Mason Kelleher (Frostburg St.) to score the second TBolts run of the game.
With Kutney on first in the top of the fourth, TBolts second baseman Matthew Kim (Hampden-Sydney) crushed a triple to right-center field. After racing to third, Gaithersburg’s relay throw sailed into the Thunderbolts dugout. With Kim’s two-run little league homer, the Thunderbolts leveraged a 3-1 lead.
As Kutney and Kim crossed the plate, the crowd at Criswell Automotive Field erupted in cheers for the Thunderbolts. Although this was an “away game,” the TBolts faithful pulled through all night with creative team posters and enthusiastic chants.
Gaithersburg hit their groove in the bottom half of the fourth, as Eli Livingston (Maryland) launched a center-field sac fly to make it 4-1. Despite the run, Seek kept his composure by forcing an inning-ending groundout to Sam Camacho Jr. (Clarion) at shortstop.
Camacho Jr. has been a reliable third baseman all season. However, due to injuries from the infield, he has been asked to step up at shortstop as of late. Last night, the Florida native notched four fabulous assists for the Thunderbolts.
Giants pitcher Peter Bashore (St. Joseph) was summoned as a second act for Singer. To start the fifth, Bashore plunked Trent Lopez (Cornell) in the leg. Griffin Puvel (Rider) then pierced a pitch off the glove of third baseman Drew Jourdan (Frostburg St.), and Lopez bolted home to give Silver Spring-Takoma a 5-1 fifth-inning lead.
After four efficient innings, Seek tumbled into fifth-inning turbulence. Drew Cobb (Jacksonville) drew a leadoff walk, and scurried to third after Seek’s pickoff attempt sailed into foul territory. Buckles clobbered an RBI single, and Seek sequentially saw the end of his terrific night. As trudged to the dugout, his TBolts teammates gave him his flowers with showers of high fives.
Two-way TBolt Wade Hartrick (U Chicago) hit the hill, and did a superb job relieving Seek. The righty secured a quick strikeout with his slider, and forced a subsequent groundout to end the inning.
In two and two-third innings, Hartrick allowed just one hit and hurled four total strikeouts; this included back-to-back K’s to conclude the seventh. After sending Cole McKenna (Longwood) down on strikes, the Colorado native cried a scream of grit to the TBolts dugout. Hartrick clearly had emptied the tank in his best outing of the summer. After a runless performance, the righty “fell over in the bullpen dead tired,” as Brock Hunter humorously admitted.
Thunderbolts reliever Matthew Calabrese (Rider) came on to contain any kind of eight-inning comeback. After gunning down Brayden Ruiz-Weiss (Yale) in a rundown between third and home, the Thunderbolts turned an electric double play. DH Lee Turnipseed (Charleston Southern) torched a lineout right to Camacho Jr. at short; Eli Livingston leaned too far off the bag, so Camacho gunned him down with a force-out to first.
After Peter Bashore’s two-hit pitching performance, Nathan Murphy (George Washington) made his way to the mound for Gaithersburg in the ninth. Murphy issued a walk to Pegues, and Trent Lopez provided premium insurance for the Thunderbolts. The righty looped a single to right field, and Pegues pedaled all the way home for a 6-2 lead.
Up by four with three outs to go, the Thunderbolts were on the brink of beating Gaithersburg for an emphatic upset. Unfortunately,—as has been a common theme the entire year—the TBolts began to buckle under pressure. The Giants juiced the bags with a hit-by-pitch and back-to-back walks. At this point, Hunter made a call to the bullpen for Aidan Watts (Rochester) to close it out.
After a loud pop of the bat, Charlie Buckles booked a long right-field sac fly for the first out of the ninth. Cole McKenna then mashed a single off the glove of third baseman Nolan Kutney into foul territory, and the TBolts lead was trimmed to two.
Watts struggled to find the zone in his next two face-offs. Catcher Mason Kelleher did a superb job at blocking Watts’ chaotic pitches, but it was not enough to prevent back-to-back walks by Brayden Ruiz-Weiss and Drew Jourdan. Jourdan’s walk caused another run to score, making it 6-5 Thunderbolts.
In response, Brock Hunter handed the ball to EJ Youngling (Moravian) to try and wake the TBolts up from this soon-to-be nightmare. Silver Spring-Takoma had seen this scenario in their final four regular season games. After building a big lead, they had let the game get away from them, losing in heartbreaking fashion. However, last night, Youngling refused to let that nightmare become a reality.
With Goliath looming large, David slinged him a stone with the bases still loaded. Youngling registered the perfect double play ball to Camacho Jr. at short. After rolling it to Kim at second, he nailed it to Connor Frickey at first to bury the coffin at Criswell.
In total, the TBolts notched nine hits, drew six walks, and struck out seven Giants. Gabe Pegues went a perfect 2-2 with two walks, and hit the leadoff home run to set the tone for the TBolts. In the nine-hole, Matthew Kim went 2-4 with his fourth-inning RBI triple. As mentioned before, shortstop Sam Camacho Jr. and catcher Mason Kelleher were both standouts defensively at their respective positions.
In their most voracious victory of the summer, the Thunderbolts played demoralizing defense, consistently scored runs across the contest, and escaped multiple jams with poise. Not only this, but the TBolts snapped a four-game losing streak that stemmed from the end of the regular season.
“That’s what we’ve talked about all year. The regular season is what it is, we just gotta be ready for the playoffs,” Brock Hunter told Patrick Moran after the game. “Pitchers were awesome today, and the hitters made something happen every inning.”
For the second straight summer, the Thunderbolts have defeated the Giants in a do-or-die play-in game at Criswell. Next stop for Silver Spring-Takoma is Regency Furniture Stadium. In a quick turnaround, The TBolts will play the Southern Maryland Senators at 4:30 P.M. today in a Wild Card matchup in Waldorf, MD.