Pearl Take Critical CCL Game Against Legends 3-2

Palo Alto, Calif. – Whenever the Neptune Beach Pearl and the Menlo Park Legends meet for a game, you can bet your bottom dollar that it is going to come down to the wire. Thursday’s match at Baylands Athletic Center was no exception, with the Pearl taking the lead first and nearly coughing it up in the final two innings. Neptune Beach was able to hold on and secure a 3-2 victory over Menlo Park to extend their lead over the second-place Legends to three games. With just two games remaining against the two teams, each game the rest of the way becomes even more critical for Menlo Park as they look to hang on to a wild card spot in the CCL playoffs. The Pearl are now 24-11 and 14-7 in CCL games while the Legends are 23-12 and 10-9 in conference games. The Legends saw their winning streak snapped at eight games overall.

Jake Swiech got the nod for Menlo Park as the starter and delivered a quality outing. He allowed just one hit through the first four innings before running into trouble at a scoreless tie in the fifth. He allowed a leadoff double to John MacLean, who then scored one pitch later after Andrew Bryniarski doubled to the gap in left-center. A sacrifice fly from Mike Woodworth would score Bryniarski, and the Pearl had a 2-0 lead halfway through the affair. Walker Pennington led off the sixth inning with a moonshot homerun to left field that extended the lead to three. That would be the last run of the game for Pearl and the last allowed by Swiech, who went 6 innings, allowed 6 hits, the 3 runs, walked 1, and struck out 3. Unfortunately he would fall to 3-1 on the season after the offense couldn’t back him up.

Noah Gotsis was just that much better for the Pearl. He did not allow a run in his seven innings of work, allowing five hits, failing to walk a batter, and striking out five. The closest the Legends came to scoring against him was in the fifth inning after Dempsey Grover led off with a single and Scott Ota did the same two batters later. Both men would move up on a wild pitch from Gotsis, and the Legends had runners at second and third with just one out. Gotsis would bear down and strike out both Steven McLean and Justin Jacobs to end the threat and keep the bats of Menlo Park at bay.

Sean Watkins doubled to right-center to lead off the bottom of the eighth inning, and did so as a pinch hitter. After a walk to Jacobs, RJ Williams bounced a ball over to the third baseman for the Pearl and it ate him up and went into left field. That got the first run home for the Legends and they proceeded to load up the bases with just one out in the inning. With Tyler Nelin up and Jake Paredes on the mound for the Pearl, Nelin hit into an inning-ending double play to keep the deficit at two. Chandler Bengston tripled with two outs in the ninth and scored on a Watkins single to left, but McLean popped out to end the ball game and end the Legends winning ways.

Now that the Legends dropped their conference game to the Pearl, they hit the road for their last road trip of the summer against the Humboldt Crabs. The non-conference series begins with the opener on Friday at 7:00 in Arcata. The games will not be broadcasted on the Legends Radio Network, but a broadcast can be found on the Humboldt Crabs website.