DANBURY, CT—The Danbury Westerners walked off against the Ocean State Waves 8-7 at Rogers Park.
In a back and forth game where the Ocean State Waves (16-21) and the Danbury Westerners (20-17) combined for nine total runs in the eighth and ninth innings, the Westerners worked three singles, two of them bunts in the bottom of the ninth which led to Justin Jordan working a full-count walk with two outs to give Danbury the win.
The Westerners struck early in the top of the first as Cam Masterman stepped up to the plate. Masterman lined a home run to Memorial Drive in right field to bring Danbury out to an early 1-0 lead. Andrew Jenkins followed at the dish two days after a two home run performance on Sunday at Valley. Jenkins matched Masterman with a solo home run, this time to left field to make it back-to-back Westerners home runs and a 2-0 Danbury score.
The Waves got one run back in the top of the third inning after a Casey Dana sacrifice fly to right field that scored Kyle Maves. Danbury added another two runs on a Nick Lorusso double in the bottom half of the inning.
A second run followed for Ocean State in the fifth inning when Waves scored on a Danbury outfield error.
Ocean State later loaded and stranded the bases in the top of the seventh, but an inning later they took the lead. Alex Ramirez scored Albert Choi and Nick Cimillo with a double and Ramirez later scored on a passed ball to make the score 5-4 Ocean State. Ian Ostberg doubled in Kyle Maves later in the inning.
Danbury responded with an RBI triple from Henry Strmecki to score Luke Shliger. Strmecki scored on a Sebastian Murillo bloop single to left to tie the game at six apiece. Cam Masterman found a single to right field to bring home Murillo and give Danbury a 7-6 lead.
Ocean State tied the game in the top of the ninth on another passed ball.
Nick Lorusso led off with a leadoff single to right field off of Waves reliever Jake McOsker. Will Gersky bunted and reached on an infield error while Luke Shliger worked an infield bunt hit of his own. The following two batters flew out and struck out to bring up Justin Jordan to the plate.
Jordan worked a 3-2 count on six pitches before taking ball four to give the Westerners a walk-off win by a score of 8-7.
The Danbury Westerners will take the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard to take on the Sharks (22-15) at the Shark Tank tonight at 7:00 PM. The game will be live-streamed on the NECBL Network.
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