VBL Beats Sunbelt for Second Straight Undefeated Showcase
Box Score
Photo Credit: Jimmy McCumber
A night after giving up five straight runs to let a victory slip, the Valley Baseball League scored five unanswered runs and defeated the Sunbelt League 6-4 at the Southern Collegiate Showcase.
The VBL bats, which had only managed an Oraj Anu infield single over the opening four innings, finally got going in the fifth. Chase Cheek led off with a double and scored on Anu’s sacrifice fly to make it 2-1 Sunbelt.
JD Mundy doubled in the sixth and then scored on Dom D’Alessandro’s double- with the slugger somehow twisting around the tag to score.
After a single from Riley Wash and an Anu walk in the bottom of the seventh, Jackson Webb legged out a bunt single. Austin Embler’s RBI single gave the VBL their first lead of the game at 3-2.
The bases were still loaded for Mundy and the Sunbelt walked him to make it 4-2. Webb also came home on a passed ball in the frame.
It took a tough catch by Cheek in deep center to clinch the victory, after Sunbelt cut the deficit to 5-4 and loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth.
Sunbelt had wasted no time getting the opening two runners of the game to second and third with nobody out. One man came home on a groundout, but Graham Ashcraft struck out the next batter on an offspeed pitch and got a comebacker to the mound to strand a runner at third.
The Sunbelt put two more runners in scoring position in the second, but three straight strikeouts by Ashcraft got him out of the jam.
Two more free passes (one a hit batsmen) in the third put runners on the corners, with the Sunbelt grabbing one run on a double-play groundout. A pair of popouts stranded a Sunbelt runner on third in the top of the fourth.
Embler went 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored for the VBL. Mundy knocked in a run in the bottom of the ninth and was 2-for-3 with two RBIs and a run scored.
With the Ripken League defeating the Florida League 6-4 earlier in the day, the VBL is the only league out of five to go undefeated (3-0-1) over the last two years at the Showcase.
