The 12U Blue Thunder staged a big comeback on Friday night to stay alive in the Orland Park tournament!
The Blue Thunder trailed Orland Hills 10-3 as the game moved into the bottom of the sixth inning with the time limit approaching. Orland Park scored six times to move within one run, but failed to score the tying run despite having the bases loaded with just one out. With less than two minutes remaining before the time limit was applied, Orland Park hustled onto the field and the seventh inning was underway just in time.
Matthias Dietz held Orland Hills scoreless in the top of the seventh. But, the first two hitters for Orland Park struck out in the bottom of the seventh inning. With two out and no runners on base, Matthias Dietz doubled sharply down the leftfield line. Nick Waters then hit a spinner through the right side of the infield and Matthias advanced to tie the ballgame. Nick advanced to third base on two stolen bases and alertly scored the winning run on a wild pitch.
The Orland Hills coaching staff awarded the game's MVP to Nick Waters in recognition of his four outstanding innings of pitching and his aggressive baserunning to score the winning run. Nick battled through the middle innings and never gave in despite getting squeezed on some critical two strike pitches and having the infield defense collapse behind him in the fifth inning.
Nearly every player on the team contributed to this win. Some of the notable plays included: Cody Gountounas fielded two balls that were hit very hard at him at second base; Joey Marchese showed amazing range in the hole from his second base position to retire an Orland Hills' batter; Matt Rafferty sacrificed his body at third base by knocking a hard hit ball down and throwing across the diamond to retire a batter; Jayson Lenzen dug balls out of the dirt on two plays over at first base to retire the batters; T.J. Andrews slammed a triple to deep rightcenter field; and Sean Hughes pitched two solid innings to get Orland Park off to a good start in this one.
2011 Chicagoland Tournament Champions & 2011 Lombard Tournament Champions!
