 By DC Grays Staff
After a subpar campaign in 2021, which saw the DC Grays drop to last place in the six-team Cal Ripken League Collegiate Baseball League, the Grays front office set about upgrading the talent level on the roster for 2022. A handful of players return for a second summer with the team, and DC also welcomes several highly-touted newcomers. The core of the coaching staff returns, led by Manager Reggie Terry who has managed the Grays since 2015. Local baseball legend Jimmy Williams returns to the Grays for a ninth summer, after another spring coaching at Prince Georges Community College. The Grays’ exceptional pitching coach Andre Rabouin comes back for a second stint with the team after finishing the spring with Gallaudet University. This roster is a mix of players from programs that have traditionally sent players to DC – such as BYU, Lafayette, Wofford, and Catholic – as well as players from some new schools we are excited to add – including St. John’s, Maine and George Mason. As always, there is a representative contingent of athletes from HBCU baseball programs, including Alabama A&M, Coppin State and Xavier (LA). The 2022 Grays roster shapes up like this:
Many 2022 Grays enjoyed strong spring campaigns. For example, BYU shortstop Ozzie Pratt is one of BYU’s top hitters as a freshman, and catcher Mason Strong has also contributed significantly for the Cougars. CJ Mervilus has had an excellent spring for Alabama A&M, starting 30 games at shortstop. The group of Catholic pitchers have been a key component of that program’s outstanding 28-win season in the Landmark Conference. Third baseman Connor Goodman from Maine is hitting .300 in regular appearances for an excellent Black Bears team. Sam Blancato from Georgia Southern is hitting over .280 while getting significant playing time. Grays General Manager Chris Spera said “This roster came together well, and I am excited about its talent, depth and versatility. We think we’ve put together a balanced team that can contend for a Ripken League championship.”
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 When he arrived in Washington, D.C. just days before the season began and threw three innings of one-run baseball, everyone sitting in the dugout, in the stands and in the press box at the Washington Nationals Youth Baseball Academy in Southeast D.C. knew that Cooper Vest (BYU) was special.
He turned his first start since high school on June 7 into a staggering 1.12 ERA in 24 innings on the bump. And add to that, he and four other DC Grays — outfielder Scott Bandura (Princeton), pitcher Tucker Alch (Catholic), shortstop Cam Bufford and infielder Jared Sprague-Lott — were named to the Cal Ripken Collegiate League All-League teams. Vest, Bandura, Bufford and Alch earned First Team honors, while Sprague-Lott was named to the Second Team. Bandura is set to make his Cape Cod League — considered the nation’s premier collegiate summer league — debut next summer with the Hyannis Harbour Hawks, while Bufford and Vest earned invites to the Cape before its 2021 season concluded. Bufford accepted the invite and played in four games for the Falmouth Commodores, while Vest turned the invitation down in order to return to BYU for the beginning of the fall semester. All five players earned All-Star nods and played against Team Israel in Harrisburg, Pa. towards the end of the season. Alch led the league in ERA with a 1.82 average in 29 ⅔ innings, but Vest led his squad with a 1.12 mark in 24 innings on the bump. Vest, after completing his true freshman season with the Cougars, had planned to spend his summer at home, but was told by his coaches at BYU to head to Washington a week before the summer season began to pitch. He hit .261 as an outfielder in 27 games with BYU, but wasn’t able to take the bump in the spring after undergoing an elbow procedure during his senior year of high school. Bufford, Bandura and Sprague-Lott, all former Little League World Series participants, paced the Grays’ offense in just about every category this summer. Bandura, DC’s center fielder, was the centerpiece of the offense, leading the team in games played (28), batting average (.351), hits (34), RBIs (26), walks (21), and even led the league in stolen bases with 31. Bufford, meanwhile, flexed his muscles and mashed a team-leading seven home runs before he headed up north after finishing out the Grays’ season against Bethesda in the league semi-final series. And Sprague-Lott, after leading the Atlantic-10 in batting average, hit .284 and drew an absurd 20 walks in 26 games, while moving all around the infield to fill manager Reggie Terry’s needs. The DC Grays continue to count down the days and look forward to what next summer has in store.  The DC Grays RBI softball team will be hosting its annual 9-11 tournament again this year, with teams from across the Mid-Atlantic region participating in a two-day tournament as well as a coaches clinic and showcase.
The tournament will feature teams like Philadelphia Phillies RBI, Maryland Glory Softball, Laurel Flash softball, and the Mount Vernon (NY) Lady Knights as well as our DC Grays RBI 16U and 18U teams. (Our 16U team recently won the championship in the Softball Nation tournament in Richmond.) Games will be held in September 11-12 at the Washington Nationals Youth Academy on Ely Place SE, and Jackie Robinson Fields 1 and 2 (located behind Kimball Elementary on Minnesota Avenue SE). Our college showcase on Friday (September 10) includes coaches from Virginia State, Georgetown, Howard, UMBC, Norfolk State, Virginia Union, Washington Adventist, Bowie State, Coppin State, Morgan State and Maryland-Eastern Shore. DC Grays RBI is part of MLB’s Reviving Baseball in Inner cities (RBI) program. The program is run by DC Grays Baseball, an all-volunteer non-profit organization that also runs the DC Grays summer college team in the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League. “It is an honor to host this tournament and to play against some great teams,” said DC Grays RBI Head Softball Coach Harry Thomas. “But the coaches clinic and showcase is even more important. We want these girls to be seen by these fine coaches that represent many Division 1 programs. They deserve every opportunity to continue their softball careers in college.” If anyone is interested in finding out more about DC Grays RBI softball, they should contact Harry Thomas at [email protected] or go to www.dcgrays.com/dc-grays-rbi  In an effort to provide kids in the District with top-notch baseball instruction throughout the year, the DC Grays RBI youth baseball/softball program has entered into a hew partnership with the St. James – a state of the art sports facility in Northern Virginia.
For a steeply discounted fee, high-school age DC Grays RBI baseball players will be able to participate in the following activities at the St. James:
DC Grays RBI coaches Brad Burris and Antonio Scott will help coach the St. James fall team in NVTBL, and will help run the weekly practices, along with St. James baseball director and former Baltimore Orioles outfielder LJ Hoes. DC Grays RBI is part of MLB’s Reviving Baseball in Inner cities (RBI) program. The program is run by DC Grays Baseball, an all-volunteer non-profit organization that also runs the DC Grays summer college team in the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League. “This will be a game-changer for the kids in our program,” said Brad Burris. “To play against good competition in the fall and get professional instruction all off-season will make all of them better players for their school teams in the spring and for our RBI schedule in the summer. We are thrilled about this partnership.” If anyone is interested in finding out more about DC Grays RBI baseball and this partnership with the St. James, they should contact Brad at [email protected] or go to www.dcgrays.com/dc-grays-rbi More information about baseball at the St. James can be found at www.thestjames.com/sports/baseball  In early August, representatives of the DC Grays served as baseball consultants for the cast and staff of the play “Toni Stone”, which opens a 30-plus day run at Arena Stage starting Friday, September 3 and running through Sunday, October 3. “Toni Stone” is a play based upon the true story of the title character, who was the first woman to play professional baseball with men, playing with the Indianapolis Clowns in the Negro Leagues back in the 1950’s. Arena Stage reached out to the DC Grays to get assistance working with the actors and staff to add realism and authenticity to the baseball movements in the play. DC Grays General Manager Chris Spera, 2021 Grays player and DC native Jake Davidson and 2012 Grays alumni Cory Spera all spent a busy afternoon on August 8 with “Toni Stone” director Pam MacKinnon and Stage Manager Elisa Guthertz and the entire nine-person cast. “We started out with the cast as a group, then split into stations, almost like a youth clinic, with one of us working with a group of actors on swinging a bat, one of us working on throwing motion and one of us working on fielding mechanics,” Chris Spera said. “The actors rotated through all three stations. The actors took this very seriously and were really interested in the authenticity of their movements, asking very specific questions and requesting multiple demonstrations. It was extremely interesting approaching the mechanics of the sport from the visual arts perspective instead of the performance coaching perspective.” After spending several hours on the mechanics of playing baseball, the cast asked the Grays reps to watch them run through some scenes so they could see how they applied what they had learned in the context of the actual play. “We are so thankful for the Grays assisting us in our preparations,” stage manager Elisa Guthertz said. “All three of them – Chris, Cory and Jake – were so informative and helpful to both the actors and production staff.” In the finest DC Grays tradition, DC Grays gear was presented to the entire cast.” More information about “Toni Stone”, as well as ticketing information, is available at https://www.arenastage.org/tickets/2021-22-season/toni-stone/.    WASHINGTON — Another summer and another DC Grays season in the Cal Ripken Collegiate League has come and gone in the blink of an eye. Beginning in early June, the Grays — which featured eight members from the 2014 Little League World Series, including broadcast intern Mo’ne Davis — completed the CRCL season, nearly missing out on a berth in the League Championship Series.
Despite an up-and-down summer, the Grays defeated the Gaithersburg Giants in a thrilling 11-inning victory during the play-in round, but lost to the eventual league champions, the Bethesda Big Train, in the league semi-final series. The seven players featured from the 2014 LLWS that suited up for the Grays this summer were Scott Bandura (Princeton), Jared Sprague-Lott (Richmond), Kai Cummings (Mount St. Mary’s), Jahli Hendricks (Southern), Joe Richardson (Southern), Brandon Gibbs (Delaware State) and Cam Bufford (Grambling). Every one of the aforementioned players, with the exception of Bufford, played on Davis’ team, the Taney Dragons (Pennsylvania) in 2014. Three of the former Little League stars, Bufford, Bandura and Sprague-Lott, paced the Grays’ offense in just about every category this summer. Bandura, DC’s center fielder, was the centerpiece of the offense, leading the team in games played (28), batting average (.351), hits (34), RBIs (26), walks (21), and even led the league in stolen bases with 31. Bufford, meanwhile, flexed his muscles and mashed a team-leading seven home runs. And Sprague-Lott, after leading the Atlantic-10 in batting average, hit .284 and drew an absurd 20 walks in 26 games, while moving all around the infield to fill manager Reggie Terry’s needs. Bufford, a CRCL All-Star, is headed up north to finish the summer out in the Cape Cod League — known as the best summer collegiate baseball league in the country — to play for the Falmouth Commodores. Cooper Vest (BYU) also received an invitation to play in the CCL, but turned it down in order to return home and prepare for the upcoming school year, which begins on Aug. 14, and BYU’s spring season. Vest, named to the CRCL All-Star Team that lost to Team Israel in an Olympic exhibition, formed a three-headed monster with Tucker Alch (Catholic) and Mike Eggert (Wofford) at the top of the rotation for DC. Vest, Alch and Eggert combined to pitch in 20 games (15 starts) and yield a 1.92 ERA in 70 ⅓ combined innings with 71 strikeouts. Eggert threw five perfect innings against the Silver Spring-Takoma T-Bolts on June 23 before he was pulled and then pitched a five-inning, rain-shorted no-hitter against the South County Braves in his next start on July 3. Alch led the league in ERA with a 1.82 average in 29 ⅔ innings, but Vest led his squad with a 1.12 mark in 24 innings on the bump. Vest, after completing his true freshman season with the Cougars, had planned to spend his summer at home, but was told by his coaches at BYU to head to Washington a week before the summer season began to pitch. He hit .261 as an outfielder in 27 games with BYU, but wasn’t able to take the bump in the spring because after undergoing an elbow procedure during his senior year of high school. Both Eggert and Alch were named to the All-Star team, as well as catcher Burke Camper (Towson), reliever Frank Craska (Lafayette), starting pitcher Jake Davidson (Kenyon), left fielder Tanner Sagouspe (Cal Poly), Bandura and Sprague-Lott. Evan Smith (West Virginia), who joined the Grays after his high school season concluded in mid-June, certainly deserved all-star honors after hitting .345 in 18 games with the Grays. Pat Vandenbergh (Lafayette) and Sam Kaplan (Cornell) also raked for the Grays as everyday players this summer, hitting .325 and .284, respectively. Kaplan lost most of his freshman season and his entire sophomore season due to the Ivy League’s covid-related cancellation, but bounced back well, hitting three homers and driving in 16 runs with the Grays. The DC Grays are already counting down the days and looking forward to what next summer has in store.  GAITHERSBURG, Md. 一 Some 60 feet and six inches away from a curveball that landed in catcher Burke Camper’s (Towson) glove, was this image of reliever Frank Craska (Lafayette): his head up, strutting off the mound, pounding his right hand into his black Rawlings baseball glove.
A split-second later, the moment broke. Craska finished his walk to the dugout, he high-fived his teammates, and had just saved the DC Grays from a heart-breaking loss in the ninth inning of a do-or-die Cal Ripken Collegiate League play-in game on Saturday night, giving the Grays at least two more games to play this summer. They defeated the No. 3-seeded Gaithersburg Giants, 4-3 in 11 innings, because the pitching was dominant and the offense clicked. Craska’s all-in effort set the stage for the Grays to steal the win with Cam Bufford’s (Grambling) go-ahead single in the top of the 11th. With the win, the No. 6-seeded Grays take on the No. 1-seeded Bethesda Big Train in a best-of-three series, beginning Sunday night. But before the Grays could set their minds on playing Bethesda, the question was how long could the Grays depend on their top three arms in an elimination game. Only three pitchers were listed on the Grays’ lineup card before first pitch at Criswell Automotive Field. First up was Nick Ramanjulu (Towson), who only joined the team two weeks ago. He lived up to the challenge, throwing four innings of one-run ball, yielding five hits and striking out five before the Grays turned to one of their more creative approaches of the season. Next, they called on Cooper Vest (BYU), who started on the bump on Opening Day for the Grays and was primarily used as a starter throughout the season. They rode his arm to a win against the Silver Spring-Takoma T-Bolts to open the season and were ready to ride it once again with their season on the line, and they needed everything that he had. He provided that, and more, taking the ball in the fifth inning before emptying the tank in the ninth. He threw four-plus innings and yielded two runs, before Craska took over to finish the job. And he’d given the offense plenty of opportunities to break the game open. A few days earlier, in case the Grays had lost, Vest booked his plane ticket home back to his home state in Utah for Sunday morning. He had planned to work with BYU’s baseball camps for the rest of the summer until school started back up again in the fall. But he isn’t thinking about that now. The Grays are now in the chase for the league championship. They’re still alive because of him. Now, he has to delay his flight back home by a few days. “I don’t want to pitch poorly,” Vest said before trotting out to the mound to begin his outing. “I don’t want to be the reason we lose. I hate losing.” Patrick Vandenbergh (Lafayette) tied the game at one in the top of the fourth with a double that drove in Jared Sprague-Lott (Richmond). Vest entered a half inning later, and was given a 3-1 lead to play with on Robby Wacker’s (Emory) infield single that scored two runs in the sixth. Vest worked around five hits and two walks before he was pulled with runners on the corners and no outs in the ninth. He surrendered a run on an error in the sixth and then the tying-run in the ninth. The lefty was the Grays’ bulldog on the mound all season long and had simply run out of gas. Realizing Vest gave it his all, manager Reggie Terry signaled for the bullpen’s fireman to put out one last fire in the ninth. Craska, typically used as a closer, jogged in from the bullpen along the left field foul line and found himself, and DC, in immediate trouble. He intentionally walked the first hitter, allowing for the force play to be set up at home plate with no outs and the infield drawn in. It turns out that Craska didn’t need his defense 一 he did it all himself. To the first batter he faced, Craska worked into an 0-2 count and fell behind 3-2 a few pitches later. And then, after a few foul balls, Craska struck out Jordan Myers on a high fastball for the first out. He worked another full count to the next hitter before he was hit by a comebacker that he quickly located, throwing the ball to the plate and forcing the second out of the inning. Five pitches later, on a curveball, Craska punched out Jacob Farrar to end the frame, shifting the momentum back to the DC Grays’ dugout. In the bottom of the 10th, Craska worked around a one-out single and set the final two hitters down, and once more he gave the Grays a shot to take the lead in the top half. And that’s just what they did when Scott Bandura (Princeton) reached on a walk, swiped second and advanced third on a flyout. He scored on Bufford’s two-out, go-ahead single that snuck over the second baseman’s glove, and gave Craska the confidence to finish out the win in the bottom half of the frame. A water cooler was dumped on Craska after he recorded the final out as he gazed into the dark sky, knowing that he gave the Grays a chance to play for another few days. And after the Grays didn’t play as well as they hoped in the regular season, Saturday night’s win gave the team the spark it needed for a run at the championship. The DC Grays take on the Bethesda Big Train at Shirley Povich Field in Bethesda, Maryland on Sunday night in game one of the league semifinals. First pitch is set to be thrown at 7:00 p.m.  The annual regional showcase for Major League Baseball’s Reviving Baseball in Inner-cities (RBI) was held in the national capital area this weekend, and the DC Grays RBI program made its presence felt in all three divisions – Junior Baseball, Senior Baseball and Softball. Since 2016, DC Grays Baseball (the all-volunteer program that runs the DC Grays summer college team) has run the RBI for Washington, DC in partnership with MLB. DC Grays RBI has baseball and softball programs across all age groups, and all participation is free to all participants. In 2021, DC Grays RBI will serve 230 kids – primarily from Wards 6, 7 and 8. The MLB RBI Mid-Atlantic regionals were held locally this year, with softball held at the Washington Nationals Youth Baseball Academy and baseball held at the Academy as well as two parks in Prince George’s County, MD. The DC Grays RBI Softball team made a terrific showing, going 3-1 in pool play and advancing to the championship game on Sunday morning thanks to some terrific play from Jade Weiggands and Kenadi Burnett. In the final, with a trip to the RBI World Series on the line, the girls were defeated by the perennially powerful Harrisburg RBI by a 9-1 score. “I couldn’t be prouder of these girls,” said Head Softball Coach Harry Thomas Jr. “They work hard and play the game the right way. They are great representatives of our program.” The Junior Baseball Team (15U) went 2-2 in pool play, with wins over Philadelphia Phillies RBI and Pittsburg Pirates RBI, who went on to win the championship after advancing to the championship round. The team was paced by the strong all-around play of Marc Harrison Jr and Mark Hughes, both of whom pitched well, played multiple positions and hit the ball hard. The Senior Baseball team went 1-3 in pool play, with a dominating 14-3 win over Durham Long-Ball RBI and a handful of close losses. The power hitting of Miles Peterson and Devin Gilliam paced DC throughout the weekend. In a year when several long-time RBI teams like Baltimore Orioles RBI, Reading-Olivet RBI, PG County RBI and Norfolk RBI did not field teams in the tournament, DC Grays RBI once again fielded teams in all three divisions. In just five short years, DC Grays RBI has proven itself to be one of the leading programs in the region. The strength of the organization can be seen by the quality of play on the field, and the expansion of the program overall. Since 2019, DC Grays RBI have added Junior Travel Baseball and Junior Softball programs – allowing more kids 10-12 years old to participate in DC Grays RBI programs. “We’re building and expanding all the time,” said Head Baseball Coach Brad Burris. “We are reaching to more Little Leagues and offering more and more kids a chance to play ball. It’s exciting to see the growth.”   SOUTH COUNTY, Va. — It was who DC Grays manager Reggie Terry wanted to see step up to the plate in the bottom of the sixth. The South County Braves had already plated two runs in the inning and had battled back from a 9-3 deficit, which followed a Grays offensive outburst that saw them score nine runs across the second, third and fourth frames.
Anthony Steinhardt, who was hitting .214 entering play and hadn’t hit a home run all season, strolled to the plate with a runner on first and two outs in the inning. He watched Joey Craska’s (NJIT) first two pitches miss the strike zone for balls, then watched the third pitch for a strike. On the fourth pitch, he fouled it off down the first base line, leaving him with two strikes, giving the Grays an opportunity to work out of the inning with the score still tied. But on the fifth pitch, Steinhardt unloaded. He sent Craska’s 2-2 pitch over the right field wall for a two-run homer and broke the back of the Grays’ bullpen once more this season. It’s become a common theme all season for the Grays. That is, jumping out to an early lead, backed by a solid start on the mound, only for the bats to go cold in the late innings and the bullpen to swallow a late lead. And the losing formula might have stung just a little more in the Grays’ 11-9 loss to South County on Saturday night at South County High School. The pieces were all in place for what could have — should have — been DC’s sixth win in seven tries over the Braves. That was until the lead vanished in the sixth inning. But the loss can’t be entirely blamed on the bullpen. Aside from the go-ahead homer, Craska was dealing. He came in to clean up a mess that was left by Justin Melton (Emory), who was only pitching in his third game of the season. Melton yielded four runs and only recorded one out in the fifth when Terry turned to Craska. Before the bullpen surrendered the lead, newcomer Nick Ramanjulu (Towson) started Saturday night’s game on the mound and allowed three runs (two earned) in the first three innings, and the offense gave him — and the rest of the pitching staff — more than enough run support. Don Freyer (Shorter) made his first start as a position player after pinch-hitting on Thursday night against the T-Bolts. He rewarded Terry immediately, crushing a two-run homer in the second inning. Two innings later, Cam Bufford (Grambling) smacked his team-leading sixth home run over the center field fence. The Grays' offense was on a roll during the first four innings, but following Bufford’s bomb, only two DC hitters reached base over the final five frames. But with the Grays’ big lead, it gave Terry enough confidence to turn to the bullpen for the final 18 outs. He first made the move to Dylan Seisky (Lafayette), who’s one of the more trusted relievers in the bullpen, but he hadn’t thrown in three-and-a-half weeks. He delivered favorable results in his first appearance in 24 days, working around a hit and a walk in a scoreless fourth inning. Following the Grays’ third straight three-run inning in the top of the fifth, Terry used some of his younger arms with the sizable lead he had. Melton was the next arm to jog in from the right field bullpen. He walked the first two hitters he faced and then yielded singles to the next two. He followed it up with a strikeout and hit the next batter before Terry motioned for Craska. Craska began his outing by allowing a lead-off single, but as the runner on first was attempting to go first-to-third on the hit, right fielder Kyle Chmielewski (Lafayette), first baseman Jared Sprague-Lott (Richmond) and third baseman Robbie Wacker (Emory) teamed up to gun him down at third for the second out. Next, Craska forced Brett Stallings to pop out to shortstop to end the inning. Four runs crossed the plate fifth, trimming the Grays’ lead to just two runs and it appeared that they were out of the worst of it. Until they took the field in the sixth. Craska went back out to the mound for his second inning of work and immediately forced the first Brave hitter in the sixth to ground out. He quickly yielded a one-out single to Peyton Thomas, and then the wheels started to fall off. An error on a misplayed fly ball off the bat of Nick Cmeyla allowed Thomas to score and Cmeyla to reach third. Next, Craska induced a ground out to third base that scored Cmeyla, which was then followed with a two-out single. And then Steinhardt’s blast completed the Braves’ comeback in the seventh, and even though four runs crossed the plate with Craska on the mound, none were charged to him as earned runs while the Grays spiraled toward a group loss. Craska, and his older brother Frank Craska (Lafayette), quietly pitched the final two innings, before the Grays’ bats went down without a whimper in the ninth. The Grays travel to Alexandria to take on the Aces on Sunday night as they attempt to right the ship. First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m. at Frank Mann Field.  GAITHERSBURG, Md. — Jake Davidson (Keyon) looked up, then down at the baseball in his glove, before returning to the mound and shaking his head. The Gaithersburg Giants’ center fielder, Dustin Mercer (Virginia Tech), stood on second base, grinning. Davidson was an out away from working out of a bases-loaded jam in the top of the second — an error bent Davidson’s and the DC Grays’ luck to pieces on Wednesday afternoon.
The result, after the Grays had led 3-0 after Scott Bandura’s (Princeton) lead-off home run and a couple more runs crossed the plate soon after, was a 13-3 defeat in the first game of an atypical doubleheader. The Grays lost the second game, too, but that score was much closer, 4-3. After Bandura singled in Kyle Chmielewski (Lafayette) in the top of the second, the Grays were held off the scoreboard for the next 12 innings. The first leg lasted nine innings; the second was seven, the Cal Ripken Collegiate League’s solution to rescheduled games that turn into doubleheaders, The error that hurt DC in the bottom of the second was the result of a bad baseball decision and play. Davidson loaded the bases with a walk, a single and another single with one out. He forced the next hitter to lineout to left, before Mercer’s single tied the game and a throwing error from first baseman Jared Sprague-Lott allowed the fourth run of the inning to score. Davidson worked out of the inning on the next pitch with another lineout to left field, but the damage had already been done. The next inning, the bad luck spiraled. Six more runs came across to score, giving the Giants a seven-run lead. And even for an offense, like the Grays, that had scored 16 runs in both Sunday and Monday’s win, was too surmountable to overcome. Seven of the Grays first 12 hitters reached base in the first and second inning. After that? Seven of their final 27 batters reached base as the timely hits — and hits in general — stopped falling. The second game began about 45 minutes after the first one ended. The Grays, with a fresh slate, couldn’t take advantage of it. After Bandura led off the game with a walk, he was thrown out attempting to steal second base for the first time in 26 tries this season. A pitch later, Evan Smith (West Virginia) flew out to deep center field to end the inning, continuing the Grays’ evening of bad luck. Cooper Vest (BYU) was one of the few silver linings all of Wednesday. He received the start, throwing three shutout innings and striking out six in his eighth appearance on the bump. He yielded four hits and worked around a few errors in the second and third innings, stranding the bases loaded in the second and two runners in scoring position in the third. He lowered his season ERA from 0.95 to 0.82 — his first full season back on the mound since he had elbow surgery in high school. It seemed like the Grays’ luck had turned the corner when Vest departed following his 55 pitches in three innings. In the top of the fourth, Bandura led the inning off with a seven-pitch walk and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt that Patrick Vandendergh (Lafayette) almost beat out for an infield single. Smith advanced Bandura to third, but couldn’t beat out the ground ball that he hit to second base. Burke Camper (Towson) drew a two-out walk, leaving Cam Bufford (Grambling), who hit a towering home run on Sunday, up with runners on the corners and two outs. But a pitching change, and two pitches later, Bufford flew out to center to end the short-lived rally. Walks and a base hit burned the Grays in the bottom of the fourth when the Giants put up a four spot in the inning. DC responded two innings later when Ben Nardi (Catholic) scored on Vandenbergh’s sacrifice fly, and Smith drove in Bandura on a groundout to second, trimming the deficit to two. Frank Craska (Lafayette) trotted in from the bullpen to pitch the fifth and sixth innings, holding the Giants off the scoreboard. And in the seventh, the Grays comeback came up just short when Bufford hit his team-leading fifth home run of the season to lead off the final inning. In the end, the next three hitters went down in a row, dropping the Grays to 10-20 on the season. The Grays travel to Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring Maryland to take on the Silver Spring-Takoma T-Bolts on Thursday night. First pitch is set for 7:00 p.m. |
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