Gonzalez, Jean and Crebs come through in Knights game 1 win
Story by Ethan Pond
Shortstop Edward Gonzalez, (seen right) out of Miami Dade, batting in the 2 hole on Saturday, became the first Knight to slam a homer in their South Florida Collegiate Baseball League season, as he did so in the top of the 1st inning of game 1 of a double header against the Diamond Ducks. The homer put the Knights up 1–0, and it was long gone over the right field fence. The right fielder for the Ducks turned and gave it a look, but didn’t even move towards the wall. The crack of the bat said it all. The shortstop got all of an inside fastball in his happy zone to give the Knights an early run on the board. Coach Martin always talks about fast starts and this was yet another fine example of that.
The Diamond Ducks would tie the game on a couple of dink and dunk singles in the bottom of the 2nd 1–1, but they gambled with pitching to Tim Jean in the third inning, and they lost. There was one out in that Knights half inning, with runners at 2nd and 3rd. They could have intentionally walked Jean to set up the possibility of getting an inning ending 6–4–3 DP, but they chose not to. Jean made them pay immediately. In yet another clutch situation in his history of clutch moments for the Knights, Jean grounded a high chopper over the mound and past the second base bag, through into center field, scoring 2 runs and giving the Knights a 3–1 lead. The captain delivered again in a key situation.
The game would get then dicey, as the Diamond Ducks tied the game at 4 in the Ducks home half of the 6th inning, when Jacob Lojewski singled through the shortstop hole into left, scoring 2 runs and knotting things up. With the winning run ultimately scoring on a passed ball for the Knights in the top of the 7th, the bottom of the 7th was a wild one, almost a game within itself. Right hander Austin Crebs had to enter the game with runners on 2nd and 3rd with only 1 out in the last half inning (barring extras) of the first of 2 in the doubleheader. A runner was intentionally walked to set up the possibility of a double play. Crebs said after the game that he did so in order to get a ground ball and get out of it. Instead, Crebbs fanned the first hitter he faced, Vondravius Sands, on three pitches, and on a 3–2 count to the next hitter Sal Grindstead, the Ducks last hope in game 1, the right-hander threw high heat right by him, a fastball up at the letters, to save the game and worked his way out of inherited runner trouble. The Knights hung on by the score of 5–4.
In game 2, the Knights fell behind in the 2nd inning to the Diamond Ducks 2–0 when Bryce Smith slammed a first pitch homer, scoring Drew Carroll the Ducks leadoff hitter. The Knights would rally to tie it, however, when with runners and 2nd and 3rd in the top of the 6th inning, Noah Glidden ripped an RBI single, going with the pitch and taking it right back up the middle and into centerfield for the shutout-breaking hit. To that point, the Knights had only 2 hits, but the Ducks only had 3. It was a well pitched game on both sides, with 9 strikeouts combined between the two clubs in the shortened 7 inning affair. In that same inning, Edward Gonzalez, who hit a homer in the first game of the double header, committed as daring a base-running play you’ll ever see. With one out and runners at 2nd and 3rd, Tomas Batista of the Knights hit a simple popout to shortstop Rob Robinson Jr. Robinson casually caught it for the second out, but Edward Gonzalez had carefully tracked the trajectory of the pop fly, and considered Robinson Jr’s arm, and broke for home. He seemed to take the entire Ducks infield by surprise, and slid in at home to tie the game at 2. The Knights dugout was electrified and shouts and high-fives echoed all around.
The Knights would eventually go on to lose 3–2 in the bottom of the 7th, surrendering a walkoff single to… who else…Rob Robinson Jr.
The Knights played hard and managed a split against a good team in the Ducks. They take more away from this game than they lose.