West Virginia 7
Cyclones 3
Aug. 8 in West Virginia
It was bad news for the Cyclones.
Brooklyn pitchers Jose Geraldo, Trey Cobb, and Marcel Renteria allowed seven hits and seven runs, and the Cyclones mustered up only three runs in the team’s fifth-straight defeat, this one at the paws of the Black Bears.
The Cyclones and the Black Bears exchanged runs early on. West Virginia got on the board first when Chris Sharpe reached home after Geraldo made a throwing error trying to pick Sharpe off as he was stealing third, but the Cyclones tied it when Leon Byrd Jr. singled with runners on the corners to score Franklin Correa in the third.
The Bears went on a tear in the next two innings. Rau Siri reached third after Correa made a throwing error to second before Raul Hernandez hit a sacrifice fly to score Siri in the fourth. In the fifth, Jared Oliva led off the inning with a triple and Dylan Busby walked before Lucas Tancas hit a three run homer to make it 5–1.
But our boys didn’t go away quietly. Walter “Rabbi” Rasquin led off the sixth with a double before Jose Miguel “Funky Cold” Medina was hit by a pitch. After Bears reliever Sergio Cubilete threw a wild pitch to advance Rasquin and Medina to third and second respectively, Quinn Brodey grounded out to score Rasquin and advance Medina to third. Carl Stajduhar then hit a sacrifice fly to score Medina, making it 5–3.
The Bears bumped their lead up to four the following inning. Jared Oliva led off with a walk and then advanced to second off a wild pitch from Renteria. Busby then singled to score Oliva, then advanced to second on the throw.
Cyclones manager Edgardo Alfonzo replaced Renteria with Connor O’Neil hoping to stop the rally, but the strategy failed. After O’Neil threw a wild pitch to advance Busby to third, Tristan Gray hit a sacrifice fly to score Busby to make it 7–3.
Brooklyn’s Boys of Summer failed to catch up, cementing the loss.
The defeat puts the Cyclones at 14–33, good enough for dead last in the McNamara Division and eight and a half games in back of the Hudson Valley Renegades, the second-to-last place team. On the plus side, Medina and Rasquin both made the New York Penn League South All-Star Team.
The Cyclones take on the Black Bears again tonight at 7:05 pm in West Virginia.
