By Scott Zolotorow
BETHESDA, MD — The Bethesda Big Train defeated the Gaithersburg Giants 7-3 on Host Family Night In Cal Ripken Collegiate League action at Shirley Povich Field, Saturday. With the win, The Big Train improved to 19-4 and snapped a three-game losing streak. That losing streak is the only time the Big Train have lost consecutive games during the summer and all three loses came by just one run. Before the game started, the Big Train honored their host families by having a representative from each family throw out a ceremonial first pitch to their host athlete.
The Big Train got things started in the first inning when a Johnny Cole (Coastal Carolina) double scored Logan Farrar (VCU) to take a 1-0 lead. Bethesda’s starter Kit Scheetz (Virginia Tech) cruised through the first four innings with that 1-0 lead until the fifth inning when the Giants took a brief 2-1 lead after a pair of singles by Matt Oniffery (Maryland) and Jeff Osak (Seton Hall) to start the inning led to RBIs by Connor Macalla (Texas) and Brady Acker (George Mason). But a Brandon Lowe (Maryland) sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fifth tied the game at 2-2.
The Big Train turned to reliever Tim Yandel (Tulane) who pitched three very solid innings, including back-to-back, three up, three down innings in the sixth and seventh. While he was on the hill, the Big Train bats came back alive as they scored two runs in the 6th and one run in the seventh to go up 5-2. The Big Train lead off the sixth, seventh, and eigth innings with base hits and scored the leadoff man in each of those innings. A Stephen Alemais, two-RBI single in the 8th gave Bethesda the 7-3 lead. He went 2-5 and stole his 17th base of the season. Farrar finished the game 2-4 with two runs scored. Left fielder, Chris Lewis, reached base in 3 at bats and added an RBI on sac fly in the seventh inning. The Big Train are five games ahead of the Rockville Express for first place in the CRCBL.
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