News

Sanford, Fl- The Squeeze and River Rats concluded the regular season with a game played at Historic Sanford Memorial Stadium on Saturday night. Coming into this game both teams were already locked into their respective seeds. Sanford of course will be the leagues #2 in this playoffs and the Squeeze will be the 3, this means that these two teams will also be playing each other in the first round of the playoffs. 

Getting the nod for the Squeeze in this game was Gavin Book (Santa Fe), Sanford jumped on Book early and never looked back. Books final stat line for this game was just 2 innings giving up 4 runs on 3 hits, 3 walks and 3 strikeouts. For the Rats it was Ethan Diaz (Lake Sumter), Diaz was lights out in this one going a full 4 innings, letting up 2 hits while walking none and fanning 2. 

The Rats opened up the scoring in the bottom of the 2nd inning when Stewart Puckett (USF) launched a ball over the outfield wall for a 2 run bomb scoring himself and Nicholas Collins (Undecided). The offense kept rolling in the 2nd inning when Pat McDonald hit a RBI triple, scoring Cole Russo (UCF) to extend the lead to 3-0 Rats early.

The offense for the Rats fizzled out in the bottom of the 3rd inning when Brayden Woodburn (Tampa) hit yet another Rats homer in this one, good enough for the 5th of this series alone between these two teams. Woodburns homer made the score 4-0 and proved to be helpful later in this game. 

Dalton Robinson (Florida Gulf Coast) got the Squeeze scoring going in the top of the 5th when he hit a single to right field bringing in Zachary Stokes (West Florida), the RBI marks Robinsons 10th of the season. 

In the top of the 8th inning the Squeeze inched a little closer when Matthew Prevsek (UCF) put a ball on the ground to the second basemen allowing Robinson to come in and score from third making it 4-2 Rats. 

The final score in this game was 4-2, the Squeeze offense was shutdown on Saturday night after the dual offensive explosions on Thursday and Friday. They will now have to try and find that offense once again against this same Sanford team. The Squeeze will now finish the season with a even 17-17 record. These two teams will now get a couple of days for a break before the begin the first round of the playoffs on Tuesday night at Historic Sanford Memorial Stadium, first pitch is slated for 6:30 PM.

Christian Rapoza (Full Sail University)