Positioned on the mound, junior Matty Stillman angles himself and launches the ball directly between the batter’s body and his catcher, junior captain Adam Solomon’s glove. The batter swings hard, trying to slam the ball, yet nearly misses it because of its sheer velocity. The Lions erupt with triumph, concluding their battle against the Field School Falcons.
On the afternoon of April 24, JDS beat the Field School 9-7. Both teams fought for the lead as the score remained close for the entirety of the game.
The Lion’s defensive prowess was evident with several players caught out by junior Jesse Fisher to begin the first inning. However, offensively, following sophomore Judah Trauben’s single, the Lions struggled to get players on base, eventually resulting in a Falcon’s 1-0 lead at the end of the first inning.
Despite their inability to score early on, the Lions maintained a positive attitude in this first inning and throughout the game. This manifested in cheering every play for teammates, supporting each other between innings, and recognizing their group efforts as a team.
“We were getting better, we were grinding, just coming together, all bonding together,” sophomore Grant Levy said. “The camaraderie today just brought us through [the game].”
Levy also pitched the second inning and struck out two players. After stepping up to bat, Levy, along with teammates junior Ari Einhorn and freshman Logan Druxman, all made it onto base after hitting, resulting in a run scored by Levy. By the end of the third inning, Levy had only let one run through defensively. Levy felt that the team had difficulty in some areas of team coordination but aspires to use the team’s mistakes as motivation.
“Today, we came through and I think we’ll be going on with those mistakes, we just roll through them and keep pushing harder,” Levy said.
During the fourth inning, the Lions’ defensive success continued with sophomore Judah Trauben catching a fly ball in left field and Einhorn striking out two additional players. Trauben scored, the only JDS player scoring for the rest of the inning. Then, JDS quickly got three players out at the top of the fifth inning, sending the Lions to bat.
After Einhorn got walked to first base, junior Adam Solomon hit a home run that collided with a tree hanging over the edge of the boundary of play, resulting in the Lions 6-4 lead.
The Lions cheered and congratulated Solomon as a team after the play but the Falcons were furious with the decision by the umpires and began voicing their opinions to the umpire, resulting in the ejection of two of their coaches. The field rules established at the beginning of every game, dictate that that specific tree should count as a home run because any ball’s trajectory that sent it there would fly farther if not for that natural boundary.
Head coach Mathew Landy coached the team and felt that his game represented a culmination of their hard work this season, despite only just returning from spring break.
“I think we were finally able to come together as a complete team throughout the entirety of the seven-inning game and just really put out our best effort, especially at the plate hitting-wise,” Landy said. “We’ve only had a few practices since coming back from spring break, but overall I think those practices have been very productive.”
Post ejection, the Falcon’s anger shifted from the coaches to their players. This was evident as Field’s players began making rude comments on the sideline. In the meantime , Druxman hit a double and scored, exacerbating the already furious Falcons players.
At the top of the sixth inning, JDS and Field went back and forth offensively and defensively. Eventually, however, Field scored three times, tying the game 7-7. The Lions demonstrated more of their previous defensive success with three outs.
Junior captain Caden Mont and Stillman both scored for the Lions at the end of the sixth inning, the final two players to score in the game. During the seventh inning, Stillman came in for relief for Einhorn, striking out a Field hitter. Stillman was grateful as he knew working together with his catcher would be crucial for striking out Falcons players.
“I trusted my catcher Adam,” Stillman said. “He had been calling great pitches, great spots, the whole inning and the inning before. So I trusted him a lot and my arm felt great today. I was just trusting my feel, just trying not to think and just let the ball fly.”
Stillman’s pitching finished the game for the Lions as he struck out the last batter, winning the game for Lions, 9-7.
