Northstars walk off against Buccaneers

Another Wednesday night game in Belfast saw the Northstars and Buccaneers trading blows for seven innings before Darwin Sanchez led his team off the field in a 15-14 victory.

In a battle of youth vs experience, Sean Shackley squared off against Kleiber Sanchez in a slugfest that had more examples of great defence than the score implies.

In the bottom of the first the young righthander loaded his bases for Jon Carter; a deep fly ball soared towards the outfield fence before being hauled in by Sean McMahon to limit the damage. The score was held at 3-2 until the bottom of the third when the Stars had clawed the lead back to 4-4. Will Mitchell of the Stars and Chris Barr of the Bucs traded double plays for an inning before the Buccaneers stretched their lead out to 7-4.

With a sliver of daylight between the two sides Melvin Woods, as he has done so many times this season, began to drive his team back and six runs later the Northstars were on top.

It was then the Bucs turn to rebound, scoring five runs to knock Kleiber Sanchez out of the game. 12-10 down, Darwin Sanchez took the ball to try and turn the tide once more. His team didn’t help matters when miscommunication led to a poor offensive half inning as the comeback was temporarily put on hold.

The Bucs added two more runs in the top of the seventh but the Stars would not be held. With the tying run 90 feet away in the form of Kleiber Sanchez and the winning run 90 feet further back, Woods was walked, a dead ball got the young starter in. A Will Mitchell hit later and Darwin Sanchez helped record a memorable victory for the Northstars.

The two sides get a weekend off while the Hornets hit the road for Cavan to take on the Comets. Mark Smith’s team may get used to travel, the majority of their remaining games take place away from the confines of Hydebank park.

Smith welcomes back catcher John Want into the heart of the Hornets lineup and he will be hoping that the firepower in the centre of his batting order will be sufficient to shut down the Comets who will be taking part in a triple header versus the Hornets and the Ashbourne Giants.

Smith will have the luxury of pitching options between himself, Colin Woods and Gord Cuthbert all travelling tomorrow. The Hornets will have to shake off any rust that has developed from not playing for a few weeks but with their destiny in their own hands in terms of the Baseball Ireland B league North pennant, motivation should not be lacking.