WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Palm Beach Atlantic baseball took one of two from Rollins on Saturday to capture the SSC series win getting two victories on the weekend. The Sailfish (12-12) won the first game before falling to the Tars (14-9) in extra innings in the second game of the day.
Game 1: Palm Beach Atlantic 8, Rollins 6
The Sailfish got on the board with an RBI single from Marcos Perez in the third inning before the offense would explode for six runs in the fourth. Three of those six runs came on a long home run over the left field wall off the bat of Brandon Smith scoring Danny Tufariello, Connor Rowland, and himself. After a pitching change Sean Houck would scamper home on a failed pickoff attempt to first that wound up at the right field line fence in foul ground. Ramon Machado then hit a sac fly to bring in the fifth run of the inning before Riley Herold put an exclamation point on the inning with a solo homerun to right field.
The eighth and final run for the Sailfish came in the seventh when Smith tripled to right center to bring home Tufariello who had doubled in the at-bat before.
Christian Denton was perfect on the hill through four innings but ran into trouble in the fifth. Denton finished the day going 4.2 innings giving up three runs on four hits with six strikeouts. Heath Hawkins came in relief to finish the fifth. Hawkins ended up going 2.2 innings giving up two runs on four hits and picked up the win. Joey Hennessey threw 1.2 innings and closed out the game picking up his third save of the year giving up only one hit and no runs.
The 'Fish had 11 hits with Machado, Tufariello, and Smith collecting two hits apiece. Rowland and Tufariello had doubles in the game while Smith had the lone triple.
Game 2: Rollins 5, Palm Beach Atlantic 4
The Tars got out to an early lead with a sacrifice fly in the top of the second inning to go up 1-0. The Sailfish did not stay down long as they tied the game up in the bottom of the innings on a Smith single down the first base line to score Rowland.
Brandon Seltzer gave PBA the lead when he hit his first homerun of the day over the left field wall to put the score at 2-1.
In the seventh Rollins retook the lead as they scored three runs on five hits. In the bottom of the seventh Seltzer once again took a pitch deep over the left field fence to chip away at the lead making the score 4-3 in favor of the Tars.
With two out in the ninth Tarik Latchmansingh reached on an error by the Rollins third baseman which allowed Herold to score the game tying run and force the game to extra innings.
In the top of the eleventh inning the Tars got a run on a ground out to Machado at second base which would prove to be the only run they needed as the Sailfish failed to score in the bottom of the inning making the final score 5-4 giving Rollins the victory.
Lance Fry pitched well going six innings giving up seven hits but only one run with four strikeouts in his 96 pitches.
The Sailfish have a quick turnaround as they host Barry University on Tuesday Mar. 19 at 6 p.m. at J.M. "Jake" Rubin Park at Rinker Athletic Campus.
