The great thing about baseball is you get a chance to redeem yourself almost every day. Community college baseball games do not happen as frequently as the major leagues, but in this instance the Centurions literally did get to try again the next day. The Centurions knew they were not that bad.

On March 8, the Centurions showed Middlesex Community College a different team. That different team came up with the same result as Middlesex center fielder Joe Alva drove in two runs to rally his team over the Centurions.

The Centurions actually jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning when second basemen Jon Unangst and shortstop Ken Searle reached base to the inning. Outfielder Andrew Torres doubled to bring both runners home, but Searle was thrown out at the plate. Right fielder Erik Mazurkiewicz then slapped a single to the outfield to bring home Torres.

Centurion starting pitcher Zach Stuebling started his day slow by walking three batters and Middlesex first basemen Matt Cesare hit a sacrifice fly to score their first run. The Centurions nearly got out of the inning when shortstop Ken Searle fielded a ground ball, but had to move in order to avoid hitting an umpire with his throw to first. The throw pulled first basemen Dustin Singer off the bag and the two runs came across the plate and Middlesex took a 3-2 lead.

Pitching took over the game from there as both pitchers pitched lights out in their final 5 five innings. Stuebling pitched six total innings striking out five and only had one earned run. Stuebling’s counterpart Joe Lunger of Middlesex also went six innings and struck out four and allowed earned run.

The weather condition of the games was nice, but very windy and that caused the outfield plays to be an adventure. Middlesex tried to use the elements to their advantage by stealing bases any chance they got. That was because the wind was affecting balls thrown from home to 2nd or 3rd base, but Bucks players countered with good pickoff defense. The pitchers and infield players worked well together and managed to pick two runners off.

Centurion relief pitcher Matt Creevey had got lit up the day before, but pitched two scoreless innings on this day. Unfortunately the Middlesex bullpen shutdown the Centurions as well and the game ended 3-2.

Centurion coach Donald Perry was in much better spirits after this game by saying, “1) Our overall play was excellent. In all areas, pitching, fielding, hitting and team energy level – excellent. I am extremely happy, proud and relieved to see that we can play as well as we did. It’s tough to say there is happiness in a loss, but we were 1000 percent better than we showed on our opening game. Middlesex CC is one of the top teams in our region.

Middlesex coach Mike Lepore said, “Bucks played very well. We underestimated them. They played well against us. Our pitcher was a freshman who pitched well but your pitcher pitched equally as well. Both teams scored in the first inning. Since it was a nine inning game, I told them to play good defense and try to score each inning.

The result was still a loss, but the team looked a lot more like a team that contend.