The Empire State Greys (7-19) have defeated the Florence Y’alls (16-11) 10-8 behind six home runs, two of which by John Mead.
In the top of the second inning, John Mead continued his recent power stretch hitting a solo home run off of Tommy Siemer (L, 0-1) for the first run of the ball game. Siemer entered the ballgame with no preparation other than some warmup pitches on the field. He replaced starter Jake McMahill halfway through the first at-bat of the inning due to injury.
Florence was the next to strike. With the bases loaded, Sam Plash hit a grand slam off of Greys starter Ryan Sandberg (W, 1-3) giving the Y’alls a 4-1 lead after the 3rd. Plash’s home run was the only blemish on an otherwise fantastic outing by Ryan Sandberg. Sandberg did not allow another run throughout the rest of his outing.
Empire State’s bats were electric in the 5th inning. Quentin Holmes got the rally going with a 1-out double and was immediately driven in by a Jordan Scott single. Back-to-back home runs by Josue Herrera and Josh Sears immediately followed Scott. Two batters later, John Mead went deep once again, giving the Greys a 6-4 lead.
Following his double in the 5th, Quentin Holmes was responsible for the Greys’ offense in the 6th. With Mike Gulino standing on third, Holmes delivered with a 2-run home run increasing the Greys lead to 8-4. The Y’alls did get one back in the bottom of the inning on an Andres Rios sac fly cutting the deficit to 8-5.
For the 3rd straight inning, the Greys hit a home run. Steve Barkmakian joined the power surge with a 2-run home run of his own and extended the Greys’ lead to 10-5. Florence responded with a home run of their own in the bottom of the inning. With two outs, and two on, Marcos Castillo hit a 3-run home run making it a 10-8 ballgame.
That score held up the rest of the game due to the valiant effort of Tanner Propst (SV, 2). Tanner recorded the last 7 outs of the game for the Greys. Throughout his 2.1 innings of work, Propst did not allow a hit and struck out three.
