Baseball: Stingers Lose in a Game of Inches

Stingers Lose Nail-Biter as the McGill Redmen Win in Walk-Off Fashion

SportsShane Wright — Published October 4, 2014

The Stingers had come back from an early two-run deficit at the hands of the Redmen, with runs scored in the third and the fifth inning, before the Redmen ended the game in the bottom of the seventh.

“The team played very well, we played hard and some balls went our way, and more didn’t, that’s baseball,” said Stingers manager Howie Schwartz after the loss.

“Couple inches one way, couple inches the other way.”

After surrendering two runs in the first inning, Concordia pitcher Roberto Zapata settled down and pitched seven complete innings and recorded four strikeouts, keeping the Stingers in the game inning after inning, until the bottom of the seventh, when he slipped up and allowed the game-winning run.

“After the first batter got on, it slowed me down mentally,” Zapata said. “As much as I didn’t want it to happen, being the starting pitcher, and going into the seventh inning, you get tired both mentally and physically and I just wasn’t able to execute.

“All I can do now is learn from this and get better.”

Despite playing with an injury-riddled squad, Schwartz was still pleased with how his team fared against the Redmen.

“We have a lot of injuries and we haven’t faced this sort of obstacle in a bunch of years,” the manager said. “We had four guys out [of] their normal position this game, and it does make a difference.

“Give them credit, they did the job, they got the walk-off, they did what they had to do to win the game; no discredit to them, they played well,” Schwartz added. “I’m just proud of my boys, playing under the conditions we had, we played very well.”

The Concordia Stingers have three games left in their 2014 season and are still in the hunt for first place in their league from McGill. After a two-game series against the Montreal Carabins, they will end their season against the Redmen on Monday, and the Stingers already know what is expected from them.

“We have to win all three games this upcoming weekend,” said Stingers DH Anthony Marandola. “I’m pretty confident in our team that we can do it.

“I’m confident we will be in good shape by playoff time, whether we are in first or second,” he said.