Tonight’s Friday Night Showdown between the Danbury Westerners and the Newport Gulls was a one of a kind experience. 20 walks compared to 19 strikeouts. More balls hit onto America’s Cup Ave. than put in play. One Gull with a 4-hit game, and 1 Westerner with a 4-walk performance. In the end, a rough 5th inning proved to be the difference as Danbury would claim a 17-10 victory.
Gulls Starter Drew Blake(Oklahoma St.) would go 3 innings to start off the game, only allowing 3 hits, while recording two strikeouts, working out of several jams, stranding four Westerners without allowing an earned run.
Danbury would get on the board in the 1st inning on a two-out infield single from Kobe Mentzer. Newport would respond immediately. A double from Brody Szako(Austin Peay) put two in scoring position with one out. Randy Seymour(Michigan St.) would chop a RBI groundout before Dixon Williams (ECU) continued his scorching summer, driving home Szako and making it 2-1 Gulls. They would keep the offense rolling in the 2nd, with Luke Orban(St.John’s) scoring on a sac fly from Nolan Stevens(Mississippi St.) before Szako made it two doubles in two innings, driving home Niko Brini(Wofford) as Newport took a 4-1 lead, knocking Danbury starter Matthew Wooton from the game.
Unfortunately for the Gulls, Danbury would explode in the 4th. Two singles and a walk would load the bases with one out for leadoff hitter Ray Leonzi. On a 2-1 pitch, he hit a high pop fly to right field which landed in the right field netting, putting the Westerners in front 5-4. The Gulls wouldn’t stay down for long, with a single from Andrew Duncan (Florida State) letting him use his speed to get to 3rd with one out before Randy Seymour became the final member of the Gulls starting 9 to reach base for the 1st time, driving home Duncan on a ground ball single.
It would be 5th where the Westerners would finally pull away. With struggles from the Gulls bullpen(Michael Kovala(Chipola College), Mitchell Dean(Louisville)), Danbury would score 7 runs without recording a hit, due to 7 walks and 3 batters hit, taking a 12-5 lead at the game’s halfway point. They would add to their lead with a 5-run 7th, capped off by a 3-run home run for Dante D’amore.
Carmelo Mussachia(Northeastern) brought some joy back to Cardines Field in the bottom of the 7th, with his 1st hit of the season, sending it over the center field wall to rowdy applause. He would also be pivotal in a shiny double play in the top of the 8th to help Casey O’Dell(Florida Southern) out of a jam. O’Dell pitched 3 solid innings, recording seven strikeouts and not allowing a run. A patient 9th inning would yield 3 more runs via walks, but the Gulls would come up short, with a Randy Seymour lineout ending the 4-hour affair.
With this win, the Westerners improve to 7-16 while the Gulls fall to 14-9. The Gulls resume play at 6:35 tomorrow evening at the Mystic Schooners. The Gulls next home games are a doubleheader vs the Valley Blue Sox on Monday with two 7-inning games, starting at 3:00 PM and 6:35 PM respectively.
