It’s not often that a team scores 17 runs in the first game of a double header and it’s the lower scoring of their two games of the day.
The 12U Junior Ducks put on an absolute clinic Friday night at Cantiague Park in a double header against the East Coast Cannons – even dealing with some steady rain in the second game.
Here’s how it went down.
Game 1
The first couple innings were a back-and-forth battle. The East Coast Cannons put up three runs in the top of the first inning – thanks to two singles and three errors by the Ducks. That was just the beginning of a wild offensive game, though.
The Jr. Ducks responded with a six-spot in the home half of the first. They batted around and the runs came in on a two-run error off the bat of Paul Cucuzzo, an RBI ground out off the bat of Justin Benveneto, an RBI single by Nate Methven and bases loaded walks to Nick Hoffman and Brycen Payne.
One of the parents joked that they were approaching the time limit, which was half jokingly but it seemed realistic at one point during the pitching change.
Trailing 6-3 in the top of the second, the Cannons would not roll over. They mount a rally with RBI singles by Ryan Steinberg to right field and Joe Doherty to center field to make it 6-5. They tied the game on a dropped pop up by the shortstop to make it 6-6.
Unfortunately for the Cannons, that was the closest either of the games would be.
The Jr. Ducks opened the game up in the home half of the second with runs coming on back-to-back RBI doubles by Paul Cucuzzo and Justin Benveneto, an RBI ground out off the bat of Ryan Quinn and an E4 to make it 10-6.
Benveneto settled down after that firing a 1-2-3 third inning which picked up the pace of play.
They exploded in the home half of the third with seven runs to end the game via run-rule. The big knock came on a two-run HR by Will Horowitz to make it 13-6 but they continued to pile on through the lineup including a well-struck two-run double off the bat of Nick Gargone to make it 16-6. They added one more on an E5 for good measure.
Benveneto went the complete game for the victory.
Game 2
The second game began with the Jr. Ducks picking right up where they left off in Game 1. They got two men on base and Justin Benveneto brought them both home with a two-run single to center field. After a single by Ryan Quinn, a balk allowed the third run of the inning to score as they led 3-0.
The Cannon were able to get one back in the home half of first on an error by the pitcher on an attempted pick off to score Luke Chekmayan. The rain began to come down heavy and it appeared that the offenses may suffer as they struggled to see through the rain drops.
The umpires decided to make the decision to delay the game for 15 minutes in hopes that the rain would let up.
The decision proved to be the correct call as the rain did slow down. The bats of the Ducks did not slow down. In fact, you could argue it was one of the best offensive performances by any team of the year.
They scored two runs in the top of the third on a two-run single by Gannon Klimuszko which made it 5-1. It was a huge day for Gannon out of the two-spot in the lineup.
In the top of the fourth, the Ducks added two more runs, this time on a trio of errors to open up a 8-1 lead. While the game was arguably already out of hand, their pitcher Paul Cucuzzo was pretty impressive. The hard-throwing southpaw generated a ton of swings-and-misses and he appears to have a bright future ahead of him.
In the fifth inning, something wild happened. The Jr. Ducks decided they simply wouldn’t get out. Here’s how the first 13 batters of the inning fared.
1B
RBI 2B
RBI 1B
BB
BB
3-RBI 3B
RBI 1B
RBI 2B
HBP
1B
1B
2-RBI 2B
RBI 3B
Finally two batters were retired when the Cannons chose to end the game as they had already made a number of pitching changes. While it was a blowout, it wasn’t distasteful – the Ducks simply continued to find barrels and hit extra-base hits.
With the victories, they improve to 7-3 on the season while the Cannon fall back to .500 at 5-5.