Richard Marooney catches the 3rd inning On a cool Friday night the GC FIRE U9 took on the red hot Bayville Falcons under the lights at the community park. A few "seeing eye" base hits helped the Bayville squad jump to an early 4 -0 lead. In the bottom half of the second inning John Griffith earned a lead off walk for the FIRE and moved to second base on a perfectly executed sacrifice bunt by Andrew Nagel. It took a few fielding gems by the Falcons to snuff out the Fire threat. The FIRE posted a rally in the top of the third as Christopher Kiley took a hard fastball on the wrist and Tom Gillespie followed with a single past short. Christopher and Tom caught the Falcons napping as they pulled off an exciting double steal. In an excellent at bat Kyle Ober worked out a walk to load the bases and Andrew Nagel came through with a clutch two out double to pull the Fire within one run of Bayville. Unfortunately that's as close as it would get on this cold Friday evening as our gritty FIRE squad fought hard to make a game of it against some hard throwing Falcon pitching. In spite of a tough loss the fire pitching staff of Kenny McCadden, Cole Flynn and John Griffith notched 10 strikeouts. Solid fielding was turned in by Quinn Walsh, John Schlatter, and the whole team. Game balls went to Dan Salsberg for some slick base running from home to second on a walk, and John Schlatter for several great defense in the field.

Jack Kenny, Dan Salsberg and Quinn Walsh show some team pride.

John Schlatter ready to deliver a hit Kenny McCadden & Thomas Gillespie after the game FIRE get ready to take the field