Fighting Bees Nip Lakers With Ninth-Inning Rally

JOLIET, Ill. – St. Ambrose scored two runs in the top of the ninth to clip Roosevelt 4-3 in the first game of the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference Tournament on Thursday night in Joliet.

The second-seeded Lakers (28-21) had several early chances to widen their lead, but couldn't come up with the critical two-out hit. Roosevelt opened the scoring in the second inning when Sebastian Casillas ripped a double into the gap in left center to bring home Ben Compton and move Luca Paolucci to third. However, the Lakers would strand the two runners on base, similar to how Roosevelt left runners on second and third in the first inning.

A heads up play from Casillas in the field allowed the Lakers to prevent St. Ambrose from taking the lead in the third. The Fighting Bees had already plated one run when Paolucci threw to Casillas, the cutoff man at second base, but the second baseman turned around and fired home for Sammy Estrada to tag out the second runner trying to score.

In the fifth inning, Roosevelt struck yet again to reclaim the lead with the top of the order manufacturing runs. Bryce Hayman led off with a single then stole second base, setting him up to move to third on Kekoa Ogawa's single. James Berry hit a sacrifice fly to score Hayman then Ogawa scored on Luis Delgado's double.

The game was put into a weather delay in the bottom of the eighth inning for nearly an hour, and the Lakers had to come back out to try and close out the game. The Fighting Bees tied the game with a leadoff homer in the ninth, matching their homer in the sixth. Later in the inning, Roosevelt was able to flip a critical double play to keep the tiebreaking run at third base, but an error in the field on the next play allowed the Fighting Bees to take the lead.

Roosevelt immediately put pressure on the St. Ambrose bullpen with Hayman drawing a walk then advancing to second on a passed ball. Ogawa reached on an error and Aiden Brushaber hit an infield single to load the bases with one away. Yet that was the closest the Lakers would come to tie the game, dropping them out of the winner's bracket in the double-elimination tournament.

The Lakers will face Trinity Christian at 1 p.m. Friday in an elimination game back at Duly & Health Field in Joliet. Should Roosevelt win that game, it would play again Saturday at a time to be determined by how many teams are left after Friday's action.