Knights clinch playoff berth with victory over Diamond Ducks
On Tuesday, the West Palm Beach Knights continued their winning ways as they defeated the Palm Beach Diamond Ducks 9–2. With this victory, West Palm Beach officially clinched a playoff spot in the South Florida Collegiate Baseball League.
The Knights last made the postseason in 2020, and after falling short in 2021, the team wanted to make sure that they don’t miss out on the postseason for the second consecutive summer. The Knights managed to get over .500, and after multiple occasions of going back to .500 or falling below it, West Palm Beach caught fire at the right time and played their best ball when it mattered most to stamp a spot in the postseason.
Game Recap:
Multiple wild pitches from starting pitcher Jacob Smith gave the Knights three runs as Tyler Muscat, Andres Paret, and Dominik Ramil were all able to score and put the Knights up 3–0 after one.
Danny Baez also chipped into the scoring with a sacrifice fly allowing Tommy Easley to cross home plate in the fourth.
Errors continued to plague the Diamond Ducks as the game progressed. In the fifth inning, a crucial error from catcher Camren Carroll let another run score for West Palm Beach with Ramil earning his second run of the game and. Tyler Cox made his way to third after the error, and it made it a shorter path to make it home as Juhlien Gonzalez added on another sacrifice fly for the Knights to bring in Cox to make his run tally two.
West Palm Beach then pulled away by scoring a run in the last three innings, mainly benefitting from errors made by the Diamond Ducks.
In the seventh, while Cox advanced to first, an error was made by second baseman Daulton Frank. Paret, who was at second base, made it home and capitalized off of Palm Beach’s mistake.
Two more wild pitches from the Diamond Ducks were the reason the Knights added two more runs to the scoreboard. The first one coming from Joshua Ryckman while Luke Shannahan was at bat in the eighth inning. Willie Ponce was able to benefit from this and make it to home plate.
And in the final inning, Chuck Fishbaugh added to the wild pitch count allowing Paret to score for a game high third run.
Pitching:
Tyler Ramage now has five wins this summer after Tuesday’s game. Ramage pitched in six innings and kept the Diamond Ducks scoreless. Ramage also threw four strikeouts and only allowed two hits. The losing pitcher for the ballgame was Jacob Smith, who only pitched in one inning after giving up three earned runs on wild pitches.