Rising Sun's Junior League baseball All-Stars won five straight do-or-die games to capture the District 5 title. Rising Sun clinched the crown with a 14-4 triumph over Chesapeake City in six innings Sunday afternoon in North East. Jared Stanley went the distance to earn the victory. With most of its pitching staff unavailable because of the heavy workload caused by falling into the losers bracket after the first round, Rising Sun manager Clayton Gilcher was fortunate to still have an ace up his sleeve.
"We wouldn't have had Jared if things didn't go a little awry [in a losers' bracket game against Elkton]," Rising Sun manager Clayton Gilcher said. "I had to pull him a little early. Thankfully, the sports gods were with us for that." Gilcher had confidence Stanley would do the job. "He pitched great even in the game against Elkton," the manager said. "We just had some errors on the field and got shook a little bit so we decided to take him out. He's been a very consistent pitcher the whole tournament." Trailing 4-3, Rising Sun scored six runs in a wild top of the third inning that featured four walks, three Chesapeake City errors, one hit batsman – and one infield hit. Luke Hamm and Joey Trout each walked to ignite the uprising. After Nate Wassin executed a sacrifice bunt, JJ Psenicska walked to load the bases. The tying run scored when Jon Valentine reached on an error. Winning pitcher Jared Stanley knocked in the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly but Rising Sun wasn't finished. After Nate Husfelt walked to re-load the bases, Mason Craig hit a roller down the third baseline for an RBI infield hit. Another run scored on a throwing error on the play to make it 7-4. Joseph Husfelt was hit by a pitch and two runs scored when Luke Hamm's fly ball to center was dropped. Given the lead, Stanley struck out the side in the home half of the inning. Rising Sun scored an unearned run in the fifth to up its lead to 10-4. In the sixth, Psenicska delivered an RBI single and Valentine walked with the bases loaded to highlight a four-run burst which lengthened the lead to 14-4. Inexplicably, Chesapeake City ran into two outs on the basepaths in the sixth and Stanley fanned the final hitter. Stanley only struggled in one inning as Chesapeake City scored four runs in the second after Rising Sun had grabbed a 2-0 lead in the top of the first on an RBI double by Robbie Stickley and a sacrifice fly by Craig. Still a relatively inexperienced pitcher, Stanley blanked Chesapeake City after the second inning. Most importantly, he threw strikes. "I didn't really pitch much until this year and this is the first year I got to pitch in All-Stars so it was something different," Stanley said. He said he didn't feel any jitters because he knew his defense would play well. "We've got a good defense and it showed," he said. "It felt good knowing I had a good defense behind me. If you don't throw strikes, they can't hit the ball, and if they can't hit the ball, you can't get outs." Rising Sun lost its first round game to Elkton before ousting the other four teams in the tournament. "I've been through that with this team before when they were 9-10s," Gilcher said. "We called ourselves 'The Eliminators' back then and that's what we went with again. Whenever you're the first team in the losers bracket you have that option of beating everybody and eliminating everyone from the tournament. Two years ago, Gilcher's 10-11 team won the state tournament after dropping the opener. He maintained faith in his squad but knew winning five straight was an unlikely proposition. "If you told me we'd be standing here when we lost that first game against Elkton, I would've called you crazy," Gilcher said. "We only have three shutdown pitchers and pitching is a big part of this game. But I knew if our bats got hot we could do it and the bats got hot." Rising Sun will begin state tournament play Saturday near Hagerstown. Photos from Sunday's game are below. Click HERE to view photos from Friday's and Saturday's game. Comments are closed.
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