It was a bug one Thursday evening as the Spartans headed into a 7 pm first pitch, looking to go 4-0 against the best team in the NYCBL: The Cortland Crush. And in usual Spartans fashion, they found themselves in a 2-2 tie, bases loaded, in the bottom of the tenth. For the Crush, it was either tie or die. As for the Spartans, well they had other plans. In atypical circumstance, catcher Charlie Burton found himself the winner, hitting a walk-off fielder’s choice, beating out a low throw from second on the attempted double play.

Ironically enough, Burton’s final stat line was 0-5, 1RBI. But, his defense helped immensely, as he back-picked a runner in the top of the 9th, after a Crush lead-off single. As for the hitters who did produce, Matthew Alexander’s 2-3 day, with an RBI to show, curated a co-player of the game performance. A 2-4 day at the plate for JC Ng was of note as well.

As for the pitching, the Spartans bullpen showed massive improvements today. But not before an honorable 2-run, 5 inning outing for starting pitcher Ethan Collins. He only lost steam after starting the game retiring 7 straight batters, in 3 innings of no-hit baseball. 

Back to the bullpen, though. As mentioned, they displayed improvement as well, with combined efforts from Stephen Kwak and Austin Dunn, 3 innings and 2 innings of scoreless baseball respectively between the two. 

Overall, the main cause of such a close ballgame was the lack of hits with runners in scoring postion, as the Spartans had 9 hits with only 3 runs to show for it. Nonetheless, 3-2 was your final score as the Spartans struck their first walkoff of the season.