With the largest crowd of the year looking on, visiting West Florida and host Lee supplied plenty of excitement in an important GSC contest at Olympic Field on Friday evening.
The Lee pitching captured the spotlight, and the offense provided the late thrills with a walk-off in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the Flames a well-played and well-pitched 2-1 victory over the Argonauts.
The win improved the Lee record to 25-21 overall and 15-12 in the GSC standings. The Argos are 22-10, 15-11. The series will continue Saturday afternoon. After being silenced for the past two years because of COVID, the Lee baseball team will proudly celebrate Military Appreciation Day beginning at 12:15 p.m. "It's a big day and we are excited to host the men and women in our community that have served in the military. It's a special day for our program to honor them," said Lee Coach Mark Brew.
The pitcher's duel was scoreless until West Florida's Cullan O'Shea slammed a solo homerun over the right-center field wall in the top of the sixth inning. The Flames battled back to tie the contest in the bottom of the seventh when Cam Suto ripped a shot over the left-center field fence.
The suspense continued to grow in the top of the eighth inning. Lee starter Cameron Land walked the first batter he faced in the frame and followed with a strikeout. Coach Brew quickly went to the bullpen and called on Allan Zhang Carter. The hard-throwing right-hander fanned all five hitters he faced in the eighth and ninth innings.
"It was a well-pitched game on both sides, but I was really proud of the effort by Land and Carter. They both had great command and made some huge pitches all night," praised the Lee coach.
The pitching set up the heroics by the Lee offense in the bottom of the ninth. Suto reached on an infield hit and Matthew Batts, who had two hard-hit singles earlier in the game, was hit by a pitch. Suto was forced at third on a bunt attempt, but Joshua Perez was walked to load the bases.
Thomas Zazzaro, who had been the center of many important at-bats during his five-year career at Lee, produced likely his biggest hit when his long drive to left-center field pushed Batts across the plate with the winning run and the walk-off.
"It was an exciting game and big opening series win for us. We had some hard-hit balls early, but the offense kind of went stagnant on the middle innings before we got the bases loaded for the walk-off in the ninth," said the excited Coach Brew.
Land pitched 7.1 innings and allowed just three hits, one earned run, struck out seven and walked three. In 1.2 innings Carter was perfect, striking out five with no walks. He also was credited with his first pitching victory since coming back from arm surgery.
Salvatore Ferro pitched seven strong innings for the Argos. He gave up five hits, one earned run, struck out four and walked one. Chase Wilkerson was charged with the loss. In one inning he allowed a run, walked one and struck out one.
Suto and Batts had two hits apiece for the Flames. Zazzaro, Justen Freeman and Nate Bynum had the other knocks in Lee's seven-hit attack. The Argos only had three hits the entire night.
