Jupiter Survives Scare From Wellington

Mack Lemieux pitched six scoreless innings and scored a run.

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Perhaps three will be the lucky number for the Jupiter Warriors. For the past two season, they have bumped up against the Palm Beach Gardens Gators in the 8A-9 championship and each time came away as runner up. By narrowly defeating the Wellington Wolverines 3-2 on Wednesday night, they have earned a third crack at their nemesis.

“Here we go again,” said Warrior Manager Andy Mook after wrapping up the win. “Hopefully, the result is different. It would be nice to finally get them. We do well in the regular season but they’ve had our number the last two district championship games.”

Round three between the two rivals almost was taken off the docket, however. Like the Gators against Seminole Ridge, the Warriors had to hold off a furious, final-inning rally by the Wolverines to earn the right to play for the title. After having all three of their runs gifted to them by a normally reliable Wellington defense, Jupiter nearly gave them all back with a series of blunders in the seventh.

After Mack Lemieux pitched the first six frames for Jupiter and held Wellington scoreless while scattering four hits and striking out five, James Reynolds came on for the save with a 3-0 lead in the seventh. His defense suddenly began to falter though.

With one out, Wellington’s Richie Ellis reached and advanced to second on a two-base error. All of a sudden, the previously muted crowd of Wellington fans on hand perked to life. Another Jupiter miscue in the next at-bat put Phil Sieli on first while moving Ellis to third, raising the decibel level of the crowd a little more in the process. Rick Newman then worked a seven-pitch walk, during which Ellis scored on a passed ball and the Wellington fans began to roar at full throttle. They quieted a bit when Michael Scott hit into what appeared to be a game-ending double play but a bobbled ball allowed the Wellington runners to be safe all around. With the crowd now whipped into a frenzy, the bases loaded and go-ahead run aboard, Reynolds dug deep to fan Jacob Koos for the second out, but Sieli raced home on another passed ball in the process, pulling the Wolverines within one. Rather than tempt fate against one of Wellington’s top hitters, Mook opted to intentionally walk Matthew Morales and load the bases with two outs, a precarious one-run lead and Ryan Stark on deck. Stark watched a strike then took two balls before sending the fourth pitch into center field. But Cody Wilson was able to get under it and haul it in to put Stark, and the Wolverines, away.

Kirkland Festa flashed some serious leather in the second inning.

“I was just getting pumped. I was hyped,” said Jupiter catcher Robert Valdez about the rough inning. “And you just have to learn to slow the game down when it comes to that situation. You just have to execute and just slow the game down.”

Mook echoed those sentiments but also hopes that overcoming such adversity will help his team in the long run.

“If you let your emotions take over and you start speeding everything up, then bad things happen,” Mook said. “It was a good learning experience for us, since we pulled it off. So, if anything happens when there’s a stressful, pressure situation, now they understand, just slow it down and relax.”

Other than his troubles in the seventh, Valdez had a solid night. He was responsible for the Warrior’s only RBI of the game, driving in Anthony Servideo with a single in the second inning and also showed off his defensive prowess on a couple of occasions. In the third inning with Jacob Koos and Morales in scoring position and two away, he killed the Wellington rally by flagging down a towering foul pop by Ryan Stark just inches from the backstop. He once again got the better of Stark in the sixth, gunning him down while he tried to swipe second base.

Aside from Valdez’s RBI, the Warriors scored another run earlier in the second when Lemieux came across on an error that put Servideo aboard. Servideo also added another run to the his team’s tally in the fourth inning. He drew a one-out walk off of Wellington starter Stark and later came home on a passed ball.

While the Wellington defense had some uncharacteristic miscues that led to the three unearned runs, they also had several stand-out plays. Kirkland Festa made perhaps the best of them for the first out of the second inning, laying out to to his left to coral a grounder by Reese Albert, then throwing to first from his knees for the put-out. The third inning saw another pair of gems for the Wolverines. Stark made the first of them, diving from the mound to gather up a slow roller by Noah Meltzer then making an underhanded toss to first for the initial out of the frame. Koos then book-ended the inning by saving a run with a stumbling, tumbling scoop of a sinking line drive by Lemieux with Cody Wilson looking to score from second.

Robert Valdez made some nice defensive plays and had Jupiter’s only RBI.

“Anytime we know that we’re going to have to face a pitcher like Mack, it’s going to be a struggle,” Wellington Manager Scott Riddle said. “Coming from the play-in game is tough but a couple of two-out hits and obviously it’s a different ballgame. The defense in this kind of game has to be perfect and for the most part we’ve been good all year. We gave them a couple, we gave them three, and it was a little bit surprising but if you don’t make every play in this type of game then you’re going to get punched in the face, and we did.”

Perhaps no one had more of a scare in seventh inning than Lemieux, who had worked so hard to put his team on the doorstep only to watch it all start to fade away.

“The thing with playoffs is that it’s all about experience at the end of the day,” Lemiuex said. “I feel like they’ll learn from it and I’m happy we came out with a W.”

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