Mclean-Great Falls Falls Short in Regionals

Despite defeating Regional Tournament host Manassas 9-6 on Tuesday, the McLean-Great Falls Babe Ruth 15U All-Star team dropped its nightcap to Florida, bowing out as one of the final four remaining teams.

The highly successful McLean team simply ran out of steam in their second game of the day at Gillum Fields in Manassas, falling 11-2 to a talented Tallahassee, Fla. team that now advances to the Losers Bracket Final to face Etowah, Ala. The winner of that game will face Longwood, the team representing North Florida, in the championship.

The loss ends a post season run that saw McLean-Great Falls capture a Virginia-record third consecutive state title, after capturing the district title in July.

The team opened the tournament with a 4-0 victory over Western North Carolina representative Union County Friday, Aug. 7. The win earned McLean-Great Falls a match up with offensive power Etowah, who in its first two Regional Tournament games had scored 25 runs. Etowah’s third game proved little different, scoring 11 runs, capitalizing on multiple McLean defensive gaffes to prevail by the final score of 11-8 and send McLean to a Losers Bracket game against host Manassas.

While Manassas was billed to be one of the weaker teams in the tournament, they leapt ahead with three runs in the bottom of the first inning to go up 3-1. But McLean-Great Falls battled back with four runs in the top of the third to take a lead it would not relinquish. With runners on first and second, Michael Alberi singled sharply down the third-baseline to drive in Andrew Stowe, while Frankie Cavanaugh followed by scoring Ryan Blackwell on a suicide squeeze. The move caught Manassas off guard and an errant throw allowed Alberi to score the go-ahead run and Cavanaugh to advance all the way to third. Cavanaugh scored on an RBI ground out by Chaz Ayoub to give McLean-Great Falls a 5-3 lead.

Manassas flirted with getting back in the game, but repeatedly failed to capitalize, stranding runners in the bottom of the third and fourth after getting the first two batters of the inning on base. Consecutive errors by McLean-Great Falls in the fourth threatened to open the floodgates for Manassas, but Tyler Thompson came on from the bullpen to strike out next three batters and snuff out the potential rally.

McLean-Great Falls tacked on four more runs on RBI singles by Brian Lainoff and Peter Ferrara in the fifth inning and two runs scored by Blackwell and Michael Mensing in the top of the seventh.

Manassas rallied to make it 9-6 in the final frame before James Siddall closed the door for McLean-Great Falls to pick up the save.