Pine Crest Rallies In Last At Bat To Top Monarch

The Pine Crest Panthers pushed across three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to narrowly edge the Monarch Knights 7 -6 at Deerfield Beach High School Field last night.

In a classic seesaw battle that included one tie and three lead changes, the Panthers took the early lead as Jake Toffler opened the scoring with a lead-off double in the bottom of the first.

With first cousins Michael Pierson (RHP – Pine Crest), and Andrew Pierson (LHP – Monarch), squaring off on the mound, the fans were in for a real treat.  While Andrew pitched very well in limiting the Panthers to two runs (just one earned) over three plus innings, Michael got  the best of the match-up, striking out the side in the first and shutting down the Knights bats in yielding just a harmless two-out single in his three innings.  With an explosive and perfectly located fast ball, he notched a total of four strike outs.

Ironically, both pitchers committed first inning errors. Only Andrew’s, however, proved to be costly, as he booted Michael’s two-out grounder back to the box, allowing Toffler to score from third with two down.

After two scoreless frames, Pine Crest added another run to take a 2-0 lead as M. Pierson singled through the left side of the infield, driving in Alex Perez who had doubled to the fence in LCF.

On the strength of Brian George’s two-run opposite field home run, Monarch knotted the score at two apiece in the top of the fifth.

Back came the Panthers in the bottom half of the fifth with two more runs to regain the lead 4-2 as Perez smacked another double, this one down the right field line, good for two RBI.

Once again Monarch came right back with three of their own, to take a 5-4 lead.  Sparking the rally was Andrew Rohloff with an RBI single, driving in Bobby Jakubek, who was on via a walk. Lead off hitter Kenny Finley then hit a sac fly to right scoring Rohloff with the go ahead run. Jakubek opened the seventh inning with another free pass, stole second and one out later crossed the plate with an insurance run as Rohloff ripped another RBI single, this one right up the middle increase Monarch’s lead to 6-4.

Hanging tough, Pine Crest opened the bottom of the seventh with a pinch hit single by Ronnie Rocca.  Dylan Smith drilled a screaming single past short followed by a beautifully executed bunt single by the pesky lead off hitter Toffler, loading the bases.  Catcher Perez picked up his third RBI grounding into a force play at second.  M. Pierson then crushed a tremendous double to LCF, driving in Smith to knot the score at 6 apiece with one down. 

After Monarch’s short stop Finley successfully gunned down Perez at the plate off the bat of Ben Arkin for the second out of the inning, Chandler Cissel got the game winner, singling up the middle, scoring Pierson for the 7-6 come-from-behind victory.

Smith picked up the win as Jarrod Walker took the lose for Monarch.

“This was a team win. This is one of those times where we went through the entire bench and called on people and the right things happened at the right time,” said longtime Panthers Coach Glen Pierson. “That last inning, we did things with people who weren’t expecting to play in this game and they were tremendous in making this comeback. Monarch played  an amazing game. This was a fun game. Timely hitting, excellent base running, good defense.  It all worked.”

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