The Dons took on the College Park Falcons on Thursday for the second match up of the series. The boys continue to play inspired ball. Unfortunately there is a razor thin margin of error when runs are hard to come by. The boys in blue played the Falcons even for 13 innings before coming up short 3-2 at home.
The two teams have played 20 innings of baseball in two games this week.

There is a lot to unpack here. Mason Zirkel took the mound for Acalanes and threw 5 shutout innings to start the game. The performance extended his scoreless innings streak to 15 entering the 6th inning. Unfortunately he got in a bit of trouble and gave up 2 runs, before giving the ball to Logan Mikalis with one out in the inning. Zirkel went 5 and a 1/3 innings, giving up 4 hits, 2 walks and recorded 5 strike outs.

Mikalis came in and put out the fire in the 6th . Logan was simply outstanding, going 5 and 2/3 innings for the Dons, giving up only 2 hits, no walks and no runs, while recording 3 strikeouts to get the boys into the 12th inning. Peter Thorn came in for the 12th and 13th inning ( had to reset the scoreboard at this point! ) and gave up 2 hits, no walks and a run, as he struck out 2 Falcons.

Defensively the Dons played fantastic, flashing the leather throughout the contest. The effort was led by the “Minster of Defense”, James Stadt, who made dazzling play after dazzling play at shortstop throughout the afternoon. Everett Glass, Gavin Bender, Mason Michlitsch, Nico O’Rourke and Andrew Habas all contributed to the top notch defensive performance as well. The team went 13 innings without recording an error.

For the second game in a row the Dons knocked out 11 hits. The base paths were loaded with runners for most of the day, but once again runs were hard to come by. Mason Michlitsch led the team with 3 hits. Keegan Goddard, Andrew Habas and Gavin Bender each had 2 hits for the Acalanes attack.

The boys took an early 2-0 lead in the 2nd inning, before the Falcons came back in the 6th to tie the game at 2-2. In the bottom of the 2nd , with two runners on, Everett Glass laid down a perfect bunt to score Michlitsch from third and a hustling Benji O’Rourke from 2nd on a daring dash home, after the throw to first on Glass’s bunt.

Pitchers dominated the next 6 innings, with solid defensive efforts from both squads.
College Park managed a run in the top of the 13th on a controversial collision at home, that saw
Dons catcher Sammy Lee get absolutely blasted. The always tough Lee remained in the game, to his
credit. The Acalanes “Iron Man” has played every inning of the season at catcher this season.

The Dons got their first two runners on in the bottom of the 13th , but once again, it just wasn’t meant to
be. The Falcons turned two on a grounder to second and got the final out to end a 3 hour, 13 inning marathon.

Pitching and defense can and will win for the Dons, but that’s baseball. Good things are right around the corner. This was the team’s third one run loss. A 13 inning loss on April 13th . Hmmmm.
You gotta believe though! This bad luck is about to end. Come out to the next home game this Thursday, April 20 against Benicia High School.
See you at the yard. Go Dons!