Knights finish off regular season with high scoring win over Pompano Beach
The regular season finale for the West Palm Beach Knights was a success as they defeated the Pompano Beach Clippers 12–11 in a ballgame that lasted eleven innings. The Knights finished the year with a 21–16 record, and closed the year on a four-game winning streak and in the final ten games had a record of 8–2.
West Palm Beach was able to grab an early 2–0 lead in bottom second with an RBI single from Gino Bellantoni to score Townson Ellis and Danny Baez.
The Knights kept the lead for most of the ballgame until the sixth inning, where the Pompano Beach Clippers scored four runs and after seven it was suddenly a 5–3 ballgame in favor of the Clippers.
The game was then tied in the bottom eighth with a sacrifice fly from Danny Baez to bring home Tyler Muscat. The sacrifice fly ended up being out number two for the Knights, and next up to bat was Tyler Cox. With five pitches in, Cox faced a full count and needed to make a play to keep the inning alive. Cox answered the challenge with an RBI triple to score Andrew Eppinger to knot the game at five going into the ninth.
Pompano Beach was held scoreless in the ninth, and West Palm Beach had a chance to end the game with Muscat on second and Ponce on third, two runners in scoring position. But the Clippers were able to escape trouble with Jacob McGovern striking out Tommy Easley.
As the game went to the tenth, the Knights were in serious trouble as Pompano Beach had their best offensive inning of the game with five runs, and put West Palm Beach in a predicament where five runs was needed to extend the game.
But the call was answered, and the Knights came right back with five runs of their own highlighted by an RBI double from Andres Paret that brought the game to ten apiece.
Going into the bottom eleventh, the Knights trailed 11–10 after Pompano Beach answered with a run of their own. The deficit only lasted a short amount of time, as in the second at-bat Andrew Eppinger recorded a clutch RBI single to score Paret’s first run of this matchup.
After Easley struck out swinging, the Knights faced two outs and there was a strong possibility the game could’ve extended to twelve innings. Danny Baez had other plans as the closed the game with a walk-off RBI to bring in Willie Ponce.
Pitching:
The Knights used a total of seven pitchers, the winning one being Fletcher Reynolds who finishes the year with a 3–0 record. Jacob McGovern picked up the loss for Pompano Beach as he was in the ballgame for 3.2 innings.
Up Next:
The Knights will rematch the Clippers on Friday as they begin their quest for the SFCBL championship. The playoff game will take place at Little Fenway at 4:00 PM.