LEESBURG – The Winter Park Diamond Dawgs suffered a 10-3 loss to the Leesburg Lightning on Saturday night to fall to 5-21.

On the verge of being mercy ruled, Winter Park was able to scratch a couple of runners across the plate in the sixth to avoid being sent home early. It was Canyon Marcewicz (Florida Southern) who started the mini two-out rally with a base hit to left, and Luis Rivero capped off his nice day at the plate with an RBI single in the inning.

Winter Park actually got on the board first in the one, but then gave up 10 unanswered runs to Leesburg. It was 2-1 Leesburg heading into the top of the third, but then things got a little bit out of hand when the Lightning dropped a seven-spot in the inning to take a commanding 9-1 lead. They (Leesburg) were able to capitalize on the Diamond Dawgs' 16 walks issued in the game. 

10 of those free passes were issued before the third inning was over. This allowed Leesburg to play station-to-station baseball, and a couple of batters were able to score due to excessive walks. Credit to Leesburg’s balanced and patient lineup, which was also able to get a couple of timely hits to drive runners home. 

For the Diamond Dawgs, not too many positive takeaways from this one. They came into the ballgame riding a two-game win streak, just their second time this season winning two games in a row. However, now with 10 games remaining on the schedule, Winter Park must make up about four games in the standings if it wants to avoid being at the bottom of the Florida League standings. 

The matchup with Leesburg was just a single game on the schedule, and now the Diamond Dawgs will take on the 21-2 Sanford River Rats for a 5:00 p.m. start on Sunday at Historic Sanford Memorial Stadium. 

TJ French (University of Georgia)